JavaScript: The Complete Reference

The future is Javascript. Being a Microsoft technologies fanatic, I always wanted to make use of the AJAX library. My javascript needed some brusing and this was the book I went after. The complete reference, and a good companion to HTML/XHTML Complete Reference. David Flaganan's book is good too. Both deserve 5 stars.

I wanted to learn JavaScript, up and rearing to go. So I got David Flanagan's book "The Definative Guide". But the concepts flew over my head. Its the best book on JavaScript, without a shadow of a doubt, but simply fearful to the poor old newbie like myself. Don't get me wrong, its well written, but if he had written it the way I needed it to be, it would have taken up 100000 pages. Shipping would be a nightmare! Anyway, about this book. It's a good book, great for newbies. I don't know why the other author review mentions that you need to have prior experiance with a programming language. That's rubbish IMO. Sure he mentions Javascript having a simularlity to C/C++/Java, but its not like you gotta learn those languages, its just a mention, thats all. He explains basics, like what a token is, how if/else/for statements work. You know, basic stuff for a newbie to learn. If you are a programmer already, just skip the first five chapters, and you'll be in the meat of the book about JavaScript, so its just as relevant for experienced programmers too. Anyhow, once you are finished (and applied the concepts with a mock up webpages) you are no longer a newb. Then move on to that gem which is David Flanagan's Definative Guide. After going through that and applying it, you'll be well on your way to becoming a "good" JavaScript Programmer. P.S: Becoming actually Good is no mean feat. Take JavaScript seriously folks! P.P.S: You MUST learn HTML and CSS before reading these books. JavaScript is almost entirely based in the real world on manipulating markup and style sheets. To attempt to learn JavaScript without knowing them properly (I do mean properly) would be a major folly.

As a CIS student with some prior programming experience, I find this 948 page tome both thorough and clearly written. The double table of contents, one brief, and the other very detailed, makes it easy to find what you need. Much attention is paid to cross-browser issues. You could concievably teach yourself JavaScript with this book alone.

I'm not sure why there are no other reviews of the 2nd edition of this book here, but let me rectify that now. This is an extraordinarily lucid presentation of JavaScript and its related technologies. It certainly deserves the praise it received from other reviewers (see reviews of prior edition). I've only read through chapter 12, but I've learned more from this book than three prior JavaScript texts combined. From coverage of core JavaScript to a rigorous examination of JavaScript objects and the various object models, the authors have delivered exactly what I was looking for. I've always been confused about the proper interpretation of the `this' keyword. The authors explain precisely how and why that keyword operates in different contexts and I feel totally comfortable with it now. I also have to complement the authors and editors on the quality of the writing and the accuracy of the text. The writing is tight, the code samples are well crafted and self-contained and I've only found four mistakes in 400 pages of text. In fact, I've never seen so few errors in a technical book of this size. I highly recommend this book to anyone, regardless of your level of expertise.

Easy to follow, very concise examples, wide variety of topics