Rating: 
Summary: Excellent learning tool!
Review: I've been wanting to improve my web pages and knew that JavaScript was the way to go, but I couldn't get my brain around it. I took a three hour seminar on JavaScript last year and came out of it completely confused. After reading the reviews of this book, I thought I'd give JavaScript another try.From the first pages of the book, I knew I had made the right choice. David Thau has written a very informative tutorial for JavaScript novices like me. I am not "mega-geeky" so the informal and humorous tone makes it easy to read. The examples are clear and simple to follow. Though some of the example web pages he points the reader to have changed since the time of the book's printing, they are still available via the cd-rom included with the book. This book is an excellent choice for anyone wanting to learn JavaScript!!
Rating:
Summary: Geared toward beginners who have experience with HTML
Review: JavaScript helps make a web site dynamic and interactive, but many beginners new to writing code are intimidated in their attempt to understand the complicated books on the topic. Enter David Thau's Book Of Javascript, which is geared toward beginners who have experience with HTML and who want to learn JavaScript. Chapters use tutorials and practical project applications to provide examples of how JavaScript works in the real world.
Rating: 
Summary: Solid material, if somewhat dated...
Review: Target Audience
Beginning JavaScript coders. Contents
This is a conversational tutorial on JavaScript coding designed for people who have not used the language much (or at all). The book is divided into the following chapters: Welcome To JavaScript!; Using Variables and Built-in Functions to Update Your Web Pages Automatically; Give The Browsers What They Want; Rollovers: Everyone's Favorite JavaScript Trick; Opening and Manipulating Windows; Getting Functional: Writing Your Own JavaScript Functions; Giving and Taking Information With Forms; Keeping Track of Information with Arrays and Loops; Timing Events; Frames and Image Maps; Validating Forms, Massaging Strings, and Working with CGI; Cookies; Dynamic HTML; How to Fix Broken Code; Beyond the Browser: Plug-ins, ActiveX, Making Music, and Java; Reference to JavaScript Objects and Functions; Answers to Assignments Review
There are numerous books on the market that deal with learning JavaScript. There is everything from simplistic guides to the person building their first web page, to in-depth guide for the professional web developers, to detailed reference guides that document every feature. On that scale of coverage, this book falls somewhere on the lower end of the scale. That's not a bad thing... It's just good to know what the target audience is. The tone of the author's writing is conversational and a little quirky. He uses a number of examples in each chapter to illustrate the subject matter, and they illustrate the points well. Each example is dissected so that the reader can follow along and understand what each line is doing. By the time you are finished, you should have a solid understanding of the basics of JavaScript. At that point, you should be ready to pick up a more detailed book and start learning the intricacies of the language. The only bad thing about the book at this point in time is the age of the book. He assumes that the reader is working with either Netscape 3.0 or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0. On one hand, most of the stuff you see here should be supported now in any browser. On the other hand, there's something to be said for learning the latest information on more up-to-date platforms. The age also shows up when you examine some of their web site samples. Obviously, the sites have been updated since the book was written, so you can't very well follow along any more. Conclusion
A solid, if somewhat dated, tutorial treatment of basic JavaScript coding. Easy to read, and very good explanations of code examples.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Teacher
Review: Thau is an excellent teacher. He breaks the code down for you to understand. This book is perfect for the beginner and teaches you all you need to get started.
Rating:
Summary: Very Basic
Review: The book is okay for entry level programmers but for those seeking more advanced material...save your money.
Rating:
Summary: Thau is a wizard
Review: The Book of Javascript makes the intimidating fun and approachable. I highly recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: a good hand-holding book for beginners
Review: The first JavaScript book I purchased was Visual Quickstart by Negrino/Smith. I only purchased that because of the excellent experience I had with Elizabeth Castro's HTML book, also from Visual Quickstart. That JavaScript book turned out to be a cut-and-paste recipe book. As hard as I tried, I did not learn JavaScript. Frustrated, I searched for JavaScript book reviews in Amazon and came upon Thau's book. Having finished it, I can confidently say I can code simple JavaScript from scratch. His style is clear and helped me develop an understanding of the language. The strength of the book comes from his patient handholding. He goes out of his way to explain the logic flow in the codes at the start of the book. Case in point was when he introduced "parameters" in "functions". He did so by illustrating the inefficiency of rewriting the same code all over and showed how the code evolved from one without a function, to one with a function and finally to one with a function and a parameter(s). The operative word here is "evolve". With that approach, the user learns to logically progress from a simple code to a more complex code. However, he was not consistent is presenting all the ideas in that fashion. Later on in the book, he would simply present a complicated problem and then show the complicated codes...and then explain it. This is really not as effective as showing the evolution of the code because even though I understood his explanation, it did not provide a progressive logic stream. Knowing how a code works is different from being able to actually write that code if the logic flow is not clear.
Rating: 
Summary: worse than the dummy books
Review: This book does not have a single, practical, real world application. Not one of the examples given exist in an actual website. If you enjoy creating javascripts in a vacuum free of any other code (like "hello world" exercises) then maybe this book is for you. For anyone interested in real life javascript applications I recommend you look elsewhere. All I really wanted to know was how to do a rollover. The author has dedicated a whopping 10 pages to this fundamental function, and none of the examples work, even if I copy them directly from the CD into my html pages. What a joke!
Rating:
Summary: This book will teach you JavaScript
Review: This book goes well beyond the typical "how-to" JavaScript book. After spending the first few pages explaining the history and basics of the language, David Thau mixes up the tutorials with real life JavaScript examples from sites like Sun, HotMail, and Pets.com. He carefully walks through all the code and explains everything. Thau is a great writer. I remember him from his days at WebMonkey.com and his JavaScript tutorials from that site taught me and I'm sure many others how to script. As he did with the online tutorials, this book does a thorough job covering all the basics like variables, strings, arrays, functions, etc. On the downside, there is nothing here for the advanced JavaScripter (check out O'Reilly's JavaScript Cookbook for that), but if you are a beginner or even an intermediate JavaScripter, this book is an excellent choice, and does a much better job teaching JavaScript than other entry level books, like "Teach Yourself JavaScript 1.3 in 24 Hours" or "JavaScript for Dummies."
Rating:
Summary: This book will teach you JavaScript
Review: This book goes well beyond the typical "how-to" JavaScript book. After spending the first few pages explaining the history and basics of the language, David Thau mixes up the tutorials with real life JavaScript examples from sites like Sun, HotMail, and Pets.com. He carefully walks through all the code and explains everything. Thau is a great writer. I remember him from his days at WebMonkey.com and his JavaScript tutorials from that site taught me and I'm sure many others how to script. As he did with the online tutorials, this book does a thorough job covering all the basics like variables, strings, arrays, functions, etc. On the downside, there is nothing here for the advanced JavaScripter (check out O'Reilly's JavaScript Cookbook for that), but if you are a beginner or even an intermediate JavaScripter, this book is an excellent choice, and does a much better job teaching JavaScript than other entry level books, like "Teach Yourself JavaScript 1.3 in 24 Hours" or "JavaScript for Dummies."
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