Sams Teach Yourself JavaScript in 24 Hours

This book delivers what it promises. It is not "Become a Computer Programmer in 24 Hours", and it is not a reference tome. It is for people who want to *quickly* gain a good background in client-side web development. It's well-organized, current, touches on several related technologies (the DOM, AJAX, etc), and is clearly written. I had no trouble downloading working source code from its web site. This book is an excellent follow-on to an HTML intro, because it shows the basics of how HTML, CSS, and Javascript all work together in working real-world web pages. My particular focus at work is database technology, but my group supports a big web application. This book gave me the knowledge I needed to understand what all those ".JS" files do. I'm confident that if I needed to continue on and master this technology, I'd need nothing further on the topic beyond a good reference book.

Man, I have really struggled finding a book that I could learn from. I wanted a book that gave me structure, the same way I would imagine it would work in a classroom. After reading the "Javascript Bible" and "DHTML Utopia", I was still baffled and very, very frustrated. Then I picked up "Teach yourself Javascript in 24 Hours". After reading this through the first time, I feel comfortable with the syntax, and various other parts of Javascript and even wrote a few rudimentary scripts myself. I am reading this through a second time to make sure I didn't miss anything important. Overall, this book is a great learning tool if you are new to Javascript and Object Oriented Programming. It does omit at least one major bit of Javascript knowledge, the Object Literal, which is apparently the best thing since sliced bread, but overall, this is a good book.

This is a great book which explains all the essential concepts very well and is ideal for a beginner with some HTML experience.

This was a good book for me. I had some prior knowledge of Javascript and this really brought it all together for me and cleared up any confusion that I had. It also has a decent reference in one of the appendices in the back of the book. Helped me to learn DHTML a little bit too.

Some people are saying this book TOO heavy for new programmers while others are saying it is NOT ENOUGH technical information. As someone who relies on technical books for the purpose of teaching myself new technologies, I should point out that most people have to buy more than one book to quickly master a new programming language. And I definitely recommend this book for persons new to javascript only or new to programming in general.After this book, I had that really good feeling I get when a good base has been established in a new area of technical knowledge -- when the first stuff that came in got laid down right, and then, everything that comes in after that builds easily on top of that good foundation. I am remembering things I read the first time, and everything else I have been learning since sticks, too. There are a lot of browser variation and version differences issues in javascript, and that is a problem. This author copes with it well, which is tough in the chaotic world of fast-changing www standards.I have the last version of book and the Javascript Bible, Gold (essential desk reference with 1400 pages of excruciating detail), and I definitely recommend buying THIS book as the first one. To those who wanted to find MORE information in an introductory language text, I would say that if you have the ability to read a detailed programming language book, remember all its info and methods, and start programming in the same amount of time that I can read this book and start programming while using the longer, detailed book as my desk reference, by all means do so and enjoy your photographic memory. To new programmers who wanted an EASIER book, it doesn't get clearer this, or at a sharper level of just-enough detail.Not to discourage people from speaking up, but readers should remember that a "review" is supposed to be a sharing of informed of opinions -- actually, advice -- to help other people make purchasing decisions. Readers should probably not use this review system as a message board, a readership chat, or otherwise to discuss their own issues under the impression that having any opinion at all, and posting it as a "review" helps anyone.For example, for this book, one reviewer states that the author explains the " & & " operator and then - amazingly - expects the reader to remember it later in the book. It sounds like that reader is looking for a book that performs the added function of making him pay attention, like a book that repeats and reinforces (There are books like that out there. But the handholding you want would make this book too long and too cluttered for an "in 24 hours" title). There is another "reviewer" who stated that he wanted more examples with more context, not just code snippets. Hello, do you know there are about a million downloadble javascript scripts on the WWW, in archives, articles, javascript websites, and so on, including embedded in almost every commercial web page you visit, like this one (for