The Complete Idiot's Guide to Javascript (The Complete Idiot's Guide) [Paperback]

Product Details

• Paperback: 316 pages
• Publisher: Que
• ISBN-10: 0789711362
• ISBN-13: 978-0789711366
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,883,734 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Read This Twice: a complete NEWCOMMER JavaScript book, September 17, 2005

By 

Claudiu Iacob (Romania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Javascript (The Complete Idiot's Guide) (Paperback)

I remember having read this book (the first version, though - yet I doubt to be major changes in the text).

Before making any speculations, I must put it flat: I have never had programmed in ANY way, until reading that book. The only kind of a computer related "language" I *partially* knew, was HTML.

I have read this book - it took me about 2 weeks - and than I actually wrote my first JavaScript "program"! Another month of consulting more in-depth manuals and I was able to develop a complex object-oriented JavaScript script.

How's that for a JavaScript book?

I decided to write that review since I've seen around a lot of down thumbs, and felt sort of an injustice.

I didn't mind the humor (although not so natural), nor did I disliked the "energy bill" IF clause, the "mugs receipt" WHILE loop, the "coke & pizza" FUNCTION, and whatever (kind of) funny analogies from real world I found within. Why?

Because it is an *absolute novice's* book, please retain that, and I took it that way. If you did some sort of programming before, than you definitely will find all that run around the JavaScript tail a piece of rubbish.

So, KNOW where you're standing before buying a programming book: advanced, intermediate, novice, or... simply outside. This book is for outsiders, and it is a perfectly decent written book for outsiders.

Thank you for your time

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Hopeless, March 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Javascript (The Complete Idiot's Guide) (Paperback)

I found this book one of the worst teach yourself titles I have ever come across. It really doesn't come across that author has any practical grasp of the subject. There is a sad lack of practical examples until the final chapters, which make it very difficult to learn as you go. The examples given contain errors. The pathetic humour is irritating in the extreme (particularly on second and third readings). I learnt so little from this book, and became so confused, that I began to doubt my ability to understand Javascript at all despite a programming background. Fortunately I came across Nick Heinle's book on the same subject and so got to understand that Javascript really isn't that difficult after all. So if you've read this book and decided Javascript is beyond you, think again.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars so - so *yawn*, January 5, 2000

By 

Paul J. Moade (Jacksonville, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Javascript (The Complete Idiot's Guide) (Paperback)

I've purchased a couple books to try and gain a firm understanding of javascript. Unfortunately, I haven't found one I would really recommend yet.

This one is okay, but not really great. The style of writing (humor) tends to make some subject matter confusing. Do I really care about whether I want coke with my pizza when trying to learn about how to make a function? So much better if there were a concrete example there so I could have seen how the code really works - a real life example.

Eventually, they got the idea across, but it would have been so much better without all the levity.

Some parts of the book are very sketchy as well. I wanted to learn how to make cookies, but found some of the basics about how to set the expiration date were completely unexplained. I suppose I could make the code work by trial and error, but that's not why I want a book. I want to be taught.

In all fairness, this book does do a very good job on explaining some items. It helped me the most on statements, functions, operators and the like.

All in all, it's not worthless. But I believe you can (and probably want) a better book than this to learn by.

~P~