Rating:  - May be the only Javascript book you need!
Whether you're a beginner, or a seasoned object-oriented programmer, you'll find the instruction in this book to be well written and understandable.
The first one-fifth of the book is an introduction to JavaScript and basic scripting concepts that really apply to most languages: variables, data types, loops, if...then, etc. And suddenly, bam! You're a JavaScripter!
After that follows the most complete JavaScript reference you're likely to find. Every object, major browser, property and method is covered, with a bit of code for each. Try them out and learn by doing.
One of my favorite features of a book so thick and meaty, is a good index. This book has one of the best! There isn't much I cannot look up quickly when I need to invent something new on the job.
In the last 5 years, this is the ONLY JavaScript book I've needed. It's truly a must have reference for front-end Web developers. Get one for your home and one for the office.
Take your Web pages to the next level beyond static XHTML and CSS into the interactive world of client-side scripting with the Web's most universal client-side scripting language.
Rating:  - not for real programmers
Pro: pretty comprehensive
Con: This book is obviously written for the people without much idea about programming. It tries to explain many basic things in an extremely layman's term, which may make a real programmer feel odd. I do think some serious programmers or people well trained in computer need to learn javascript too - in that case, this is not the right book to read.
Rating: - Fantastic book for referencing javascript
I hestated about buying this book when I read some of the reviews about how poorly organized this book is. Also I have "JavaScript & DHTML Cookbook" by same author and was not happy with it.
Before I bought the book, I would look up everything I needed info on, in the online index and found *EVERYTHING*. I did the same for a number of other Javascript books and most of the stuff wasn't in their index.
First let me say that I am an Engineer with 20+ years experience so though I'm pretty new to JavaScript, I'm an expert in a number of languages.
I found this book to be very well organized and incredibly helpful. I haven't tried reading it as a book cover to cover, and at 1200 pages (plus bonus chapters on CD) I never will. I use it as a reference and read just enough to understand what I need to do. As a result I'm coming at the book not as a novice but with enough understanding to have basic ideas of what I want to do. For this type of usage, this book is "fantastic".
The CD is awesome. There are a number of bonus chapters (one which was very useful to me...using XmlHTTPRequest), and having the entire book available as a pdf is a totally great way to do searches. Too bad the .pdf is too big to be readable on my clie.
I highly recommend this book.
Rating: - An amazing effort
This encylopaedic work is clear and profoundly useful. It is voluminous but does not waste words. I was so impressed by the library copy that I have bought my own.
Rating: - Nothing Compares Under The Sun As Far as Javascript Is Concerned
With nearly 10 years of javascript programming behind me and not one single day dedicated to alert "hallo world" or prompt "tell me ur name" bagatelles, and with almost 15 javascript books purchased over those years at a rate of one per year, I guess I have an educated and somewhat reliable word, which can be trusted, to say about this book - and its various eidtions.
When I first purchased an early edition, I thought the title was a bit conceited: a "Bible", you see.
If some book of this series ever fully deserved such qualification, this can be only Mr. Goodman's book. I can't vouch for future editions, but I qualify for the past ones: this book is definitive.
The book is divided into chapters that deal with the subject object by object. This is exactly what is expected for coping with a language like javascript that is arranged with properties and methods that work on objects. That's the correct approach, simply, under any point of view, educational included.
For each object all the properties and methods get explained in an astonishing manner.
It is important to stress that unlike some "core" manuals (I think of some Php), these explanations are not snappy or short: they are detailed. They do not assume you can guess what they don't say by working out the rest from parsimonious and cryptic sentences as many online manuals invariably do: they employ all the words it takes to be clear and detailed.
It seems mr. Goodman has understood that in order to be terse and clear you haven't to be so short and so cryptic, but only as short as it is necessary and not a bit more - and never, never cryptic.
The new editions cover, with the highest professionality, all the new DOM related methods, and this accounts for why new editions get released: because the language is subject to huge evolutions since it got connected with the DOM.
If the latter evolves, the former has to follow, and mr. Goodman has to write more.
The reason a few beginners say that this book is not for them is easily explained: the book deals, as I said, with javascript object by object. It starts like that _nearly_ immediately.
So, it does not cover the basics (which pertain to any scripting language and not just to javascript) in real detail.
That is, the book _implicitly_ presumes something (but not too much): it somewhat presumes you know what a loop via a "for" cycle is, it somewhat presumes you know what an "if/else" conditional check is, and it somewhat presumes you know, more or less at least, what an array is: a collection of variables each arranged as key versus value.
It does not presume more. And it is not that it does not provide explanations for those topics at all: it is that for an _absolute_ beginner grasping the meaning of a loop can be daunting regardless of how many words you spend. This is no mr. Goodman's fault: it has been daunting for us all the first times in our lives we saw loops.
You have to chew on them on your own, with a little bit of torment and agony, and nothing, not even tons of words, could really ever bridge the gap of unfamiliarity that the first blast gives to a novice.
This is why mr Goodman, arguably, does not spend _that_ ton.
Provided you have a minimal knowledge, this is your javascript book. Period. Nothing compares. That is. Simply.
Provided you haven't such minimal knowledge yet the matter is as follows: you will have it in a few weeks finding some route of your own - we all did that way if you had no teacher as I hadn't.
I learned what loops are on mr. Jason J. Manger (1996) manual, and if you complain it is difficult to understand loops from mr. Goodman, wait to understand them via mr. Manger's work as I did!
And once you will have that understanding, this will be, again, your book, your defintive javascript book, after you trudged your way through those few weeks.
All the javascript routes lead to this book, like all the ways in the ancient world were said to led into Rome.
Alberto Vallini
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