Rating: Summary: This book is a 9.5 on a 10 scale...! Review: aha!, After reading Beginning ASP 3.0 by Chriss Ullman and his gurus last summer . I wanted to know more about javascript. So i got this book. its grrreaat...! in true Wrox fashion the chapters are well laid out and very easy to grasp. the chapter on DHTML impressed me most. It presents you with drop-down Menus and hyper-links and other slick things that javascript can do that VisualBasicScript cannot do.. Javascript definitely is a must for any serious web developer and up 'n'coming webmaster. Dreamweaver MX has many of these javascript functionality in its click-drag-n-drop interface however it pays to know how the code also works. One more Wrox phenomenon has dropped in my mail-box. Gooo- Wrox..!
Rating: Summary: Second edition adds great improvements Review: All of the reviews of this book from April 2004 and earlier are based on the 1st edition, not this new second edition which didn't publish until the end of April 2004. The second edition adds some new great coverage of dynamic HTML in more recent browser versions and a new chapter on JavaScript and XML. Throughout the book there are many new examples and all of the code is now updated to be sure it works with the latest browser versions.
Rating: Summary: Beware: Not the Second Edition! Review: I already have a copy of the year 2000 edition of this book and it was a great book. I found this 2003 book and I ordered one because I thought it was the second edition. But I WAS WRONG. It is exactly the same as the 2000 edition, covering only NN up to ver 4 and IE up to 5. I had to return it at my own expense.
If you already have a first edition, DON'T BUY this book. You would end up with two copies of the same book. If you don't have a first edition, I would still recommend JavaScript Bible by Danny Goodman or O'Reilly's JavaScript than this book. They are more up-to-date.
Rating: Summary: Thank You, Paul Wilton! Review: I bought the first edition of this text five years ago when I was just beginning to learn JavaScript, and I still refer to it on a regular basis despite having several other more advanced texts on Javascript, because the information in this text is so complete and well-explained. I am writing this review today because the book is here on my desktop as I am working on a script, and it occurred to me that I should take a moment to acknowledge what a valuable resource it has been for me.
The first edition is dated, of course, due to browser changes mainly. The transition from Classic ASP to ASP.NET is another area where the technology has changed, but the basic information on the language itself is as relevant as ever. That notwithstanding, I'll have to purchase the 2nd edition now that I'm aware of it's existence.
This book will gently but firmly take you from knowing nothing about Javascript to programming at an advanced beginner to intermediate level, and once you have worked through the entire book, you'll find yourself using it as a reference for the details of syntax or the useful little tricks, as well as the excellent documentation of the Javascript core and the various object models.
If you are looking for information on more advanced techniques, such as object-oriented construction or extension, or very advanced DHTML, you might consider a text such as Danny Goodman's, or the Wrox Professional JavaScript 2nd Ed., or the Javascript Developers Dictionary which is available new for just a few bucks and is not bad at all.
Rating: Summary: Very thorough, but needs to get to the point Review: I bought this book as an amateur web site author trying to learn some new tricks for my site, and hoping to ease my way into some more serious web authoring. The good news is that this book is incredibly thorough and detailed. The bad news is that he takes you through it all at his pace, instead of helping you get what you want out of it. Put another way, I found this book very user-unfriendly.
First of all, I wanted to learn a couple really basic things for my site -- like how to make a pop-up window -- and then move onto more advanced things. But instead of a TOC that reads something like, "How to make a pop-up window" he uses all JavaScript lingo that means nothing to a beginner. The index is the same way, and so I'm forced to go through this book at HIS pace -- trying to learn a whole bunch of stuff I have no interest in --instead of my own, and still don't know how to do the few things I wanted to learn first.
On the good side, this book is extraordinarily thorough and detailed, and he does an excellent job of explaining how the scripts work. However, overall I feel that it will be far more useful as a reference than as a learning book, and now I may have to shell out another $40 for a book because I'm not sure I can suffer through another chapter of this one.
Rating: Summary: Good for beginners Review: I chose this book as my introduction to JavaScript and am quite pleased with it. It pretty well covers all the basics and is worth a straight-through read. The author builds several examples, expanding on them as the book progresses. Each time a large block of code is presented. If you can't figure out what is going on just by inspecting the code, each section is followed by a detailed 'how it works' explanation. The book was thorough enough to give me a good understanding of just about everything I needed to know to begin developing a rather complex client-side application. I had to go to a more in-depth reference to learn how to assign an event handler with parameters to a control that was being generated by code, but that was about all that I did not find covered in this book. I would definitely recommend this book to Javascript beginners, particularly those who are willing to read steadily through it.
Rating: Summary: old code but covered very well by this book Review: I have been using javascript on and off and for a while I hav stayed away from it due to poor material and bad presentation on some very bad books. This book is exception for all those who have lost confidence and compliments well with my later .net collection of books. well done.
Rating: Summary: The best there is Review: I have read a few Javascript book and this is by far the best. If you are a beginner or have basic knowledge start with this. Even if you don't know anything about programming, don't worry. He introduces all the major concepts such as loops, arrays and if statements. The examples are great. Unlike many technical books this is not boring. His writing on each issue is concise and to the point. Make this your first Javascript book.
Rating: Summary: Book confuses the issues and doesn't get to the syntax Review: Instead of defining all the attributes of say "Request.QueryString" into differenct contexts like Javascript and HTML , he muddles around with probably the lamest web application environment around.
Rating: Summary: Book confuses the issues and doesn't get to the syntax Review: Instead of defining all the attributes of say "Request.QueryString" into differenct contexts like Javascript <var> and HTML <input value=>, he muddles around with <Server-Side Scripting with ASP> probably the lamest web application environment around.
