Rating:  Summary: One of the most successful Javascript Book Review: As a Web developer, who has written popular javascript code snippets, for thousands of satisfied developers, I love this book! This book provides comprehensive explainations about the javascript language. The author explains differences between netscape and internet explorer. One of the most important chapter in the book explains how to create an javascript object, inline functions, and prototyping. Build your internet javascript library of inline objects. Over time the power of this approach will give you an extremely feature rich web page.I wrote javascript packages for xml and dom, httpxml, the browser, date functions, form functions, windows, string, math functions, and numerous helpful javascript functions. Did you know that its possible to create recursive javascript functions? I wrote a javascript route that parsed an xml tree creating a tree structure in html. Did you know that you can control DHTML elements using javascript? I wrote an DHTML editor in javascript that built the web page entirely using javascript and DHTML. The javascript structure outputted XML (see the loosely coupled interface DHTML editor). Did you know that you can control multimedia using javascript? Javascript can be used to play music, display a show case of images, and create marquee and iframe news scrolls. Using knowledge from the book it was easy to build iframe elements in the form using javascript. Did you know that you can create calendars, calculators, and clocks using javascript? Javascript is a very versitile language. Javascript grammer parsing can be done so programming code can be stored as data but run as an algorithm like lisp. I was absolutely shock after discovering this capability. If your into expert systems or neural nets think about javascript. You can load data from either client side or server side data and manipulate the data with C like function providing: loops, arrays, associative arrays, functions, and recursion capabilities. Did you know that Active Server Pages can be written entirely in javascript? I though javascript was more robust than VB script. For example, the connection of ADO, XML, or an activeX object is possible using server side ASP javascript. I've used javascript to create database transactions, file manipulation, associative arrays, and data parsing. Javascript is a powerful development language. Hugh Websites run critical server side code in javascript. If you had to write 300,000 lines of code, wouldn't you like to write and maintain it in an object oriented language? Javascript is object oriented. Even though javascript is a subset of java, it seems to do the job. In sum, if you haven't invested yet in javascript, I strongly encourage you to do so and purchase this book. The book will help you reach a professional level of coding. Basically, my rule is if it can be thought it can be built. You think of a desired function capability and there is probably a way to create the functionality using javascript. Wow netscape your awesome in creating such a powerful language!
Rating:  Summary: Excellent resource, but needs examples Review: I have to add my vote to those who feel this is an excellent resource, but that far too much important information (regular expressions, for example) is discussed in a narrative style that only hints at the actual syntax. Once you know the syntax, this book undoubtedly is a treasure -- but now I'm stuck having to find yet another resource to actually teach me how to make use of javascript (if I'd known, I would have read this book *after* doing some good turtorials).
Rating:  Summary: It didn't disappoint me! Review: Probably it is not for newbies.. not sure I am not new in Javascript. My first book was "javascript bible" by Danny Goodman, which got me started with it couple of years ago. Last year, by accident, I came accross O'reilly's Safari subscription project, and decided to refresh my Javascript knowledge. One of the books I checked out was David Flanagan's "Javascript The Definitive Guide". I read several chapters from it, and I cought myself enjoying it more than enjoyed my previous similar titles. So I decided to buy the 4th edition of the book, and was not disappointed. So what things does David do differently? Read on! I remember "Javascript Bible" by Danny Goodman starts off with hands on examples, which anyone without any knowledge of Javascript can try out in his/her editor. This is not the case with "Javascript The Definitive Guide". If you have no idea how Javascript works, you will not see a working real-life example untill Part II (page 181). Untill then, the author explains the core syntax of javascript, how javascript interperator works, how it wraps things into two objects: while interperating - Global and Call objects; talks about variable scopes and Garbage collection, objects, arrays, operators and other good stuff. It will tell you the different between object properties and variables ( or does it say there're no differences? ), talks about Regular Expression and nested functions. People who have little or no programming background tend to find this chat quite boring and meaningless ( as I would've couple of years ago ). But if you have some Javascript background, or at least know how Javascript works in the browser, and what to strengthen your knowledge of Core JS, you will find this book very informative. Part || is dedicated to Client side Javascript. That's where your browser comes into play and all the fun starts. Only here it will tell you that "Global object" mentioned in the Core Javascvript part is called "window". Talkes about CSS and DHTML, Scripting Cookies, DOM. It covers every single aspect of Client-Side JavaScript that a good Javascript book should cover. The rest of the book consists of very well designed references, that you will be using most of the time.
Rating:  Summary: Simply the Best Review: This is one of the best programming books I have ever read. The author's style is very readable and he mixes in the appropriate amount of code samples to illustrate the concepts. All code samples are very well documented, which is a big help. This is really two books in one. First is a thorough explanation of the JavaScript language fundamentals and how to use JavaScript in web pages. Then, comes the very complete reference sections which describe all classes and functions of core JavaScript, client-side JavaScript, and DOM programming. As a result, this is the only book you need to both learn and use JavaScript. The author also does a nice job of pointing out which functionality will or will not work on Netscape or IE. And, he includes useful tips on how to work around some of these issues. Those with experience in HTML but no programming languages may have a hard time with the level of detail in this book, but experienced programmers will appreciate the serious treatment of the JavaScript language. Beginners who just want to learn how to do simple scripts may want to look elsewhere, but for the serious web programmer, this book is a must have.
Rating:  Summary: Concise and extensive Review: Its a good book. The information and is all there, and the author gives thorough coverage on the topics. The reference this book provides is excellent. The only drawback is the book has no tutorials and i have to get them webmonkey.com. I would give 5 stars if the book has slightly more examples, pictures(print screen's) and if the book has slightly thicker paper.
Rating:  Summary: For anyone engaged with JavaScript website programming Review: JavaScript is a powerful, object-based scripting language. Now in a completely updated fourth edition which covers JavaScript 1.5, David Flanagan's JavaScript: The Definitive Guide continues to be a superbly presented, comprehensive, and "user friendly" guide for anyone seeking to utilize what JavaScript has to offer with regard to web programming. This latest edition has been expanded to include ECMAScript Version 3 and complete covers of the W3C DOM standard (Level 1 and Level 2) while still retaining material on the legacy Level 0 DOM for backward compatibility. JavaScript: The Definitive Guide is an essential and core reference for anyone engaged with JavaScript website programming.
Rating:  Summary: THE BIBLE Review: It seems in the whole web development process I keep coming back to this book for answers. Absolutely essential for any cross-browser javascript that needs to be written as well as cross-browser comparisons. I can't write javascript without it!! If I could give it 6 stars I would for one reason, the coverage of regexp!!!! The absolute heart of PERL and the best thing to hit earth for string manipulations. Go get it now!!!
Rating:  Summary: If you want a JavaScript book, buy this one! Review: If you're familiar with any of O'Reilly's definitive guides, you know that they are famous for having a small "how-to" section followed by some of the best reference material you can find. The first two sections of this book (Core JavaScript, Client-Side JavaScript) are the "how-to" section, covering virtually every aspect of the JavaScript language. While the Core JavaScript section covers JavaScript syntax, functions, objects and regular expressions, the second section (Client-Side JavaScript) covers how to implement this in a web browser. Clear and concise examples are given, which relate to each topic covered. The next two sections (Core JavaScript Reference and Client-Side JavaScript Reference) are worth their weight in gold. These sections are certainly not easy to read from start to end, but are perfect for finding very useful information quickly.
Rating:  Summary: Excelent resource Review: I had a VERY basic knowledge of JavaScript coming to this book, (i.e. I could make an alert popup) and no knowledge of other programing languages (well HTML, but that doesn't counts). I found it to be an excelent resource and teaching tool. True, some parts are complicated, but you can skip around chapters with relative ease, and I could always figure things out with some puzzling. It's nice how authoritative it is, and how completely it documents the syntax. It takes a while to get into the programing mood and understand its power though, so it requires some thought to get into the more advanced techniques. I would recommend this book to anyone, with the possible exception of someone without a strong basis in HTML. Also, quite frankly, what you get out of this book depends on your intelligence. If you like to read manuals (like I do), and have a strong basic computer knowledge to back this up, it'll be all you could hope for.
Rating:  Summary: Like most ORA books, it's a winner Review: While i'm generally against JavaScript (prefer CGI, CSS, etc.), there are times when you will need browsers to do some data interpretation. JavaScript is definitely the way to go when you need that power. This book is definitely not a 'here's how javascript works' book. It is aimed for someone who has a solid understanding of web page design as well as a fairly solid grasp of the basics of programming. I particularly thought that the way Database linking was dealt with was done very well (altho it's much better done with Perl :) )
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