Rating:  - Absolute Quality
This has got to be the best Javascript book for beginners around by far. The book covers every aspect of Javascript i.e. variables, arrays, control structures, conditional statements etc. This has also got to be the first Javascript book I have ever read that actually bothers to point out the difference between the BOM and the DOM. Most books just suggest everything is part of the DOM, but not this one.
The authors writing style is gentle and there are numerous code examples throughout the book to reinforce the theory. This clearly isn't a book for those who only want to learn a few Javascript tricks; this book is for those who have a serious interest and commitment to learning the language, as it is the kind of book that can take a few months to get through.
If I have any criticism of this book it would be the DHTML sections. Although it is nice to see how Javascript interacts with other languages, I feel this book goes overboard with DHTML. It can't teach you DHTML as well, so you'd be happy with a taster, but this taster goes on to long. It also has a basic ASP tutorial, and a tutorial that shows how to connect your web pages to a database. I found these two tutorials very useful.
Although not all properties and methods are covered (most are listed in the Appendix) the book still does what it sets out to do, and that is teach you Javascript, and it does an excellent job of that. Buy it, you won't regret it!!!
Rating:  - effecient shortest path to learn javascript
I have read 14 chapters of this book.I think that It use a simple language to let you understand the idea.It gives the reader a good understanding and powerful background about javascript.What let this book is the best among other books that talking on the same subject is trying to give a reader deeply understanding of how javascript works.
Rating: - Best Beginners Book Available
This is the best book available for beginners to javascript. The layout of the book is excellent and I haven't found any prominent errors yet.
As any beginners book does, this one teaches some fundamental programming techniques and methods that may be pointless to programmers who know another language and are learning javascript as an additional one. However, this is a moot point. All beginner books of any language contain this information for those who are first-time programmers and just starting out.
If you are looking for an advanced Javascript book, I recommend O'Reilly's Javascript: The definitive guide by David Flanagan, not wrox's next Javascript book.
Rating: - No Less Than Superb
This book is no less than superb as a text providing foundational principles in JavaScript and web programming, starting from elementary principles of programming and ending with a brief introduction to ASP and back-end Access databases. It is not a quick fix book as other books on JavaScript. If you work through this book, and study the code, as well as code on the web and other JavaScript books like the Definitive Guide and the JavaScript Bible, you will have a working knowledge of the principles so that you can apply them to most any situation.
I have personally applied specific code provided in this book to my web sites which I have written, and have found them to be quite useful, unlike certain other reviewers who have not worked through the book as I have for the last 6 months. I have also personally contacted Paul on several occasions, and he has helped me work through some principles to the next level, so that I could get my projects working properly. He is a very helpful fellow.
Even if you buy the Visual Quickstart Guide to get up to speed on a project, the Beginning JavaScript book by Paul is worth working through to gain the understanding of the principles you need to build a solid working knowledge, far beyond cutting and pasting snippets of code to get you by.
Rating:  - Quite Confusing....
This book is for beginners in JavaScript, but at the same time the way it is written is very confusing at times. There is one "project" that goes through the whole book, with smaller examples all over. The problem is that the smaller examples really have nothing to do with the book-long project it has you working on. I also found no use whatsoever for 99% of the examples in the book. They are VERY basic, and stuff you don't see very often while surfing the net. I can't imagine why anyone would want to do half of the things that are presented in this book.
More advances stuff - server side scripting with ASP & integrating your web pages with databases - is not gone over as in-depth as I had hoped. I think if you really want to learn JavaScript, you need to find a different beginner's guide or an intermediate book on it, not this one.
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