David Flanagan (1)

This review pertains to the Kindle Edition.

First, had Amazon or the publisher indicated that this was included as a chapter in Flanagan's recently published JavaScript: The Definitive Guide: Activate Your Web Pages, I wouldn't have bought it—but I downloaded both at the same time and didn't find out until a couple days later. If you are a DTB user then it makes sense to have both, but for a Kindle user with full text search available buying this is a waste of money if you are going to buy show more the other. That, in fact is my recommendation: buy the larger book and park it on your development workstation.

That said, this is a fine piece of work. Like many developers, I started using a JavaScript library for a particular project and settled on jQuery because it provided the features I needed at the time. I came to understand its value and used in increasingly, but always with a familiarity constrained by the requirements of my initial use. My skills grew as I used it, but slowly.

So, I really welcomed and valued the first 2/3 (or so) of Flanagan's book (or chapter), which is a narrative description of the library's features, with examples and detailed explanations of what's going on behind the scenes. Writing that sort of narrative about a programming language is hard, and Flanagan's only peer for that, in my opinion, is Friedl of Mastering Regular Expressions (also an O'Reilly book), and he succeeded here well enough that a person can actually read the whole thing with considerable understanding, thereby gaining a better overview of the library than can be had by searching out features when we bump up against something we don't know how to do. The last 1/3 of the book is a reference section: concise, simple, and well-organized, just what you need when you forget a particular syntax.

The book was written for jQuery version 1.4 and the current version is 1.6.1 (as of today), and quite a bit has been added to jQuery. I knew that before I bought the book and decided the reference retained enough value to be worthwhile even though the version had been superseded. You should bear that in mind, though. show less

This review pertains to the Kindle edition.

I gave 5-stars to an earlier DTB edition of this book, starts which this edition deserves as well, except for this one thing, which Kindle users should be warned about: the text is laid out for a wider screen than a handheld Kindle and so code examples wrap lines. The author puts code comments in a faux-column, using table to line them up to the right of the code and on a narrow screen the wrapping throws the formatting off so the code becomes show more difficult to read.

Since this is a code book, that's a big problem.

Install Kindle and load the book on your development workstation, though, and the formatting is clear on the wider screen, so if you can do that I highly recommend the book. As has been true in past editions, Flanagan's writing is first-rate, lively without being lame, and the content is thorough, well-organized, and voluminous. show less

I was provided access by O'Reilly Publishing to an electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

This is an updated edition to the classic reference book on Javascript to include new information on new standards (such as HTML5 and CSS3), conventions, and frameworks. Although it is possible to learn Javascript from this book, its really meant more as a reference guide and an explanation of how and why Javascript works the way it does. For example, the 1st chapter explains in some detail show more how Javascript works on the client side and how each of the following chapters will relate to this. The book includes numerous examples of codes to illustrate the concepts and explains the concepts in a clear, easy to follow fashion that doesn't require a degree in astrophysics to understand.

As I said it's not really a book to learn Javascript from, for that I would recommend something like "Head First JavaScript" (also by O'Reilly press.) What I do really like about this book is that it is comprehensive in what is possible with Javascript. While it may not cover the concept in depth, such as the chapter on Jquery, it does give a starting point to the concept. I know it sounds odd, but I really liked the index. It is completely through and easy to find the concept or word that I need to make something work correctly in whatever I'm writing. It's even better with the book because of the hyperlinks that take you right to the section.

My advice? Buy the ebook version, it's much easier to search and to follow to specific links vs. trying to find the stuff in the print edition. Even better, O'Reilly provides multiple formats of the book to suit your needs. Overall, it's a good handy reference to have around to answer questions and introduce new concepts. show less

This is a great book. I give it a high recommendation. I'm an application programmer, not a systems programmer nor a software engineer. VB and SQL are just my speed and most 4GLs and scripting languages are too. I may not be a progamming genius but my attitude is 'how hard can it be?'. I will try to hack anything I can before I ask for help, but when I ask for help, I want the full complete definitive answer. That's why this book is for me. I have never coded a lick of javascript before, show more then one day I had to write some cookie stuff. Fine, how hard can it be? I go out onto the web and look for (and borrow) other cookie code. I find a little bit here and a little bit there. It looks very simple but ultimately none of it works for my problem. Finally I say, I'm going to have to learn this stuff. Might as well by the O'Reilly book. My attitude is that I may never have to do anything with Javascript again, but I'm also not about to waste money on a book if I'll have replace later if and when I get serious. And this book was worth it. I now have industrial strength overkill cookie code in my application plus I undertand why everything works as it does. If you have to ask, you might as well ask for it all. This book has it all. Now I can't give it 5 stars because it's outdated. There's a lot of stuff in it that doesn't apply to the latest browsers. There was nothing about Mozilla or IE 5, so that all needs to be updated. But what's there is good so you get to understand the development priorities of those browsers and what effect that has on ways you should code. All in all it's another home run for OReilly, but Flanagan needs to step up to the plate again. BTW you'll note that this book is often referenced in other good progammer's guides. "Definitive" is right. show less