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Summary: Read this and you'll feel like the title
Review: I can't believe some of the available reading that professes to assist newcomers. Read this book and by page 40 you will feel just like a dummy. Try Netsacpe Javascript 1.2 for an excellent learning experience. Their DevEdge site is also a wonderful experience for learning. Before buying any book, look here for customer previews. I wish I did.
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Summary: For Dummies...?
Review: The CD was missing all of the examples from Chapters 1 - 5! The book itself was not too terribly difficult to follow, however, I had taken a class in JavaScript before, so I had some advantage. It gets into the more obtuse aspects too soon and doesn't give users a chance to "play" with the very basics first.
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Summary: How does Vanderveer communicate with her readers?
Review: I am an M.D. physician (lots of time spent with professors who can't communicate). I have built a very nice website after reading the excellent HTML book from the "Idiot" series by Paul Mc Fedries. Sadly, this "Dummies" book by Vanderveer does a poor job of communicating the theory and technique of Javascript. I was drawn to the book, because the "Dummies" series seemed to be geared to real neophytes. After having gotten as far as Chapter 5 and understanding bits and pieces of the concepts, I have to give up. I don't miss the money spent on the book. The time wasted on the book, I can never buy back. I wish I had read the reviews on this website before I purchased the book. Now, onward, to find a good Javascript manual.
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Summary: Great book!
Review: If you have experience in web programming you'll love this book. I've been programming in HTML and JavaScript for a long time and I've never seen a better book on the subject.
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Summary: It was ok. Not enough discription.
Review: It was ok. Not enough discription. There was a lot of example scripts, I like that, but there was not enough info to explain what the script was about.
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Summary: A load of rubbish that is impossible to follow
Review: I bought this book thinking that it would explain the ins and outs of javascript in easy to follow language for beginners. I was disappointed on all counts. The "explanations" are impossible to follow and the examples used have no practical application that I can see. Even the style it is written in is annoying. A total waste of ink and paper.
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Summary: "Dummy" title is extremely misleading
Review: I was very excited when I saw that the "dummy" series had tackled Javascript. I bought it w/o really much thought. BAD MOVE! This is not a book for beginners with JavaScript! The book does not have good explanations and I have not learned anything useful. (I have learned more useful things about JAVASCRIPT from a book I purchased last year about HTML!) The supposed-to-be-funny titles and subheadings in the book are really annoying because it seems that they are put in there to warrant the "Dummy" moniker. Extremely disappointing!
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Summary: The first Dummies book that made me feel like a dummy.
Review: The only reason I got this book was because the authors of Netscape Composer for Dummies (great book by the way) recommended it. Now I wish I had read ALL the reviews by the other customers. I understood everything perfectly fine up until chapter 3, then I became totally lost, and I'm not exactly what you would call a beginner. Vander Veer dives directly into the hard stuff, saying everything will be explained in later chapters. Well, I read the later chapters and I was still confused. The worst parts were the examples. Not only were they not explained thoroughly enough, but I had no idea how they related to anything. She defines what a method, event, and object are, but what do we do with them? Really disappointing.
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Summary: Bad for beginers
Review: Hi I'm 14 and I live in Ireland I just thought myself HTML and wanted to learn something more challenging. So I thought Javascript "For Dummies" would be great Bad choice! They just put down a load of jargon on the page and expected people to pick it up straight away. They can stop thinking I'm going to buy any more IDG books again
Rating: 
Summary: 5 stars, but minus 1 for being misleading
Review: This book is a fantastic book, IF YOU ARE AN EXPERIENCED PROGRAMMER. Don't be mislead by the "For Dummies" title. This book is packed with some serious heavy programming concepts. I'm a Computer Science student at Rowan University and have a background in C, C++, and Java, so diving into this book was like a breath of fresh air. However, I encourage others that aren't experienced with programming to look elsewhere and come back to this book later. The book offers rather a free way of learning the code. I basically picked through and took what I wanted, since learning the syntax was not a very steep curve. Most of the examples are useful for examples only, but I felt they were a great reference. The book doesn't slow down, and it gets to the point fast. It's code, page after page of it, and it's great! The more I picked up on the language the more ideas came up with to create. I have a lot of coding to do!Again, for those of you who aren't experienced with much programming, I suggest picking up a more basic book on the subject. Also if it helps, the JavaScript language is extremely similar to C and C++. It might be a good idea to try and learn that too, and kill 3 birds with one stone. The concepts are the same: objects, functions, passing parameters, Top Down Design, OOP, etc.... even the syntax is almost identical. Hope I helped. Best of luck to everyone. ___James 5 stars, but minus 1 for being misleading
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