Rating:  - For the JavaScript beginner this is for you
I bought this book for a class I was taking and it help me to better grasp the the subject of JavaScript with it's practical examples and quizzes. I am a better programmer now. I can't wait for their Advanced JavaScript book if there is one.
Rating:  - 3rd Edition VERY DISSAPOINTING
I have used the first and second editions of this book as training courseware for several years. Allthough, I was never 100% happy with the book (some important topics had been left out, the content is not cleanly organized and the examples could have been better) it served its purpose.
When I heard that the 3rd edition would be coming out, I looked forward to new and updated information, more complete descriptions and the inclusion of previously omitted information. When the 3rd edition came out, I purchased it and found it to be VERY DISSAPOINTING...to the point that it is actually worse than it was before. I will no longer use this text as a training resource as it is more conveluted than in the past and still does not include basic information that should be there.
Examples:
The 2nd edition was 1010 pages, the 3rd edition is 767 - clearly much information has been removed and unfortunately it was Appendicies B, C, & D, which were The JavaScript Core Reference, The JavaScript Client Reference, and the Latin Character Set. Now, the book just has Appendix A, which is the book's exercise solutions. The book's exercise, by the way, is a continuing example that is not very "real-world" oriented and something that most people would skip over anyway. Devoting an appendix to this, but removing the hard-core reference appendicies makes no sense whatsoever!
In none of the previous editions was there any mention of referring to external script files (.js) files, as is done as common practice out in the real world. I was hoping the new edition would include this, but not a word about it is mentioned.
The confusing "flow" of the chapters has not been corected, so you still have to get to chapter 10 before addressing errors and debugging techniques (which should be addressed as chapter 2, in my opinion as a professional trainer) and finding out that you really should be working with certain IE and FireFox settings changed if you want to be able to see your JavaScript errors show up in your browser! Seriously?! The reader is expected to go through 9 chapters without being told how to see an error message about their mistakes!! Like we don't make mistakes until chapter 11?!!
Chapter 13 is still called "Dynamic HTML in Modern Browsers" instead of what the rest of the world calls it; "The W3C Document Object Model".
There was, and still is, a chapter on XML in the book, but rather than simply merging this information into the chapter about the DOM (since the only JavaScript that is discussed in the XML chapter has to do with parsing XML via the DOM), we get a small chapter that is more about XML than JavaScript. And, there is no mention at all about using JavaScript within XML, rather than XML within JavaScript (ie. enclosing JavaScript inside of CDATA sections for proper XML parsing).
We still have the same old chapter 4 that is an overview of JavaScript and OO. Half of what you need to know about the JavaScript Native Objects (String, Number, Math, Date, etc.) is in this chapter and the other half is in chapters 8 and 9, instead of putting it all together in one place.
The bottom line for me is that this book skips important information that new JavaScript developers should know. It has no hope of becomming organized properly and crucial appendicies have been removed. This makes this book no longer useful as a reference (which serious programmers want and need).
By the way, WROX (now owned by Wiley Press) has done basically the same thing with the new 4th edition of Beginning XML. That book is still wildly incomplete and disorganized.
Rating:  - The best
Still the best book on JavaScript. With each edition it becomes better, if that's possible.
Rating: - Its a great book for beginners and helps you grow in the field as it moves on
Its a great book one I think should always be there even when you have moved on to advanced levels of Java scripting. The language is simple great examples help you put your knowledge at work.
Rating: - Beginning JavaScript- a great place to start
I have experience programming Java, C++, Q-Basic, CSS, HTML, PHP and started to learn JavaScript from free resources on the internet. The problem is that the internet is full of sales pitches and just free code. I wanted to get a good understanding to write my own code. The Beginning JavaScript gave me a great understanding of the basics. The reading was very easy- for someone with programming experience, there was too much of the basic programming info and far too many examples to help understand the basics. If you have NO programming experience, then this book is perfect for you because it will teach you everything you need to get started. After reading this book I was able to do some pretty cool dymanic website stuff on my websites.
I did want to learn more JavaScript though, so I checked out the Professional JavaScript by the same publisher. The Professional JavaScript book is great (especially if you read the Beginning JavaScript or already now programming or a little JavaScript). I was affraid that after reading the Beginning JavaScript book I would see a lot of repeat stuff in the Professional JavaScript book- that is NOT the case. There is a little over lap, but the Professional book does not spend as much time on the easy stuff. To make a long review short... I recommend the Beginning for beginners and I recommend the Professional to those who finished the Beginning book and to those that are already good at programming!
|
