Customer Reviews

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Javascript (The Complete Idiot's Guide)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

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

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.

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~

Besides being Out of date, this book is often hard to follow. It also has a few typos and errors wich add to the confusion. I would not reccomend this book to someone who wants to learn todays javascript.

Unlike the other reviewers before me, I'm coming from a completely different background. I've never learned programming, and after close to ten years of trying to pick it up, while working as a "web developer" on the front end side of web design (graphics and UI development), this graphic artist never thought he'd finally "get it".

Yet this book gave me real hope. I walked away able to read the code the other programmers I work with had written. Almost right away, I was able to see how a programmer was calling a function he had embedded in the link, with two parameters, and how he was testing their conditions."

I've been frustrated by online tutorials, and other books; but this one did a really good job of explaining the basics. True, the humor might have been more suited for "How to use Windows for Soccer Moms", and many times I had wished there were more examples and exercises to practice the concepts just covered. In fact, I wish there was a big, thick book that was devoted to JavaScript exercises--from basics to advanced scripting.

But, despite some of its inefficiencies, the proof is in the pudding. This none-programming digital artist--who has been around the Web since 1995--has finally been able to start coding in JavaScript from scratch. IMHO this book is a real gem.

Not only is there not very much useful information in this book, but it also contains several HTML errors, which I found very irritating (why trust someone to teach me JavaScript when I know HTML better than he does?). There's a lot of theory here, but not much that can be used for creating fun, simple scripts. I found online resources to be much more helpful.

A good book, although a bit hard to follow in some places. Humor mostly irrelavent, but the price sets it back a bit

The book is good for providing basic definitions, but if the user has any problems putting the author's ideas into practice, there is nothing to fall back on, including no way to contact the author, at least that I could find.

I don't think the book was organized in such a fashion that anyone could just jump in and begin to understand what's going on, unless he has a programming background, and then, that would depend on which kind of programming experience he has. I've had 17+ years of COBOL programming, yet, that didn't help me too much, as JavaScript was still a bit foreign to me.

I once saw a book that jumped right in and started with little programs (I think it was a Perl book) and then explained each of the lines. From there, bits and pieces of programming were added. This was helpful in understanding the programming process in little chunks.

It's important to make the reader feel like he is accomplishing something as he goes along. There's nothing worse tha! n a feeling that when he gets to a place in a book and tries something out that is illustrated and it doesn't work, especially when nothing is covered when "something goes wrong."

Also, some of the links provided didn't work, most notably the Netscape home to JavaScript.

I feel, like others have expressed, that the humor that was inserted was for the purpose of imitating the "Dummies" books and most of it wasn't really very good. In fact, the entire format mimics the "Dummies" books; yet, that is not objectionable in itself to me. It's a good format.

I had a problem staying with the flow of the book. It took me several attempted readings before I could get far enough into the book to actually see something interesting and of use to program--over half-way into the book! It's got good information in it, but then, again, it could be organized better to keep the reader's interest.

The book features shallow attempts at being humorous at the beginnings of chapters, but falls far short of being written for those without a programming background trying to get started in javascript. I resented its attempt to capitalize on the "...for dummies" books style to pass off dry and poorly written material!

While only a moderate HTML coder for my own personal web page...and i had worked some with the learning edition of VB....this book on elementary JavaScript caused me to really understand Functions and Methods and Function Calls. If you want to start on the ground floor with JavaScript and want some comparison background with JS -vs- other scripting and programmng languages...this should be one of the books you start with. I found the depth of coverate to be adequate and the explanations very good. It left me wanting more and desiring to use JavaScript in new ways...so i have checked out Forms Tutorials and JavaScript Tutorials on the web and this book was a good primer for those subjects. I would recommend it for the novice JS programmer.