In the past year I have seen some impressive yet close to incomprehensible scripts that show a new direction in JavaScript. We can find syntax and approaches so different from the standard practice most of us implement. Unfortunately, the scripters who have grasped the new techniques have shown little interest in explaining the new approach. Their examples published on the Web have a "show-offy" character that do little to communicate or proselytize.
For that reason, I was eager to study this book since it promised to deal with some of the new approaches, including the syntax. I have learned a lot from the author who early on made pains to keep me running apace. Regretfully, the author seemed to be less and less concerned with keeping me with him as the book progressed. The first 4 chapters were the clearest.
Part of the problem was mine. Since the book did not seem to be organized in a linear fashion, I skipped Ch. 5 on animation. I design Web applications so I associate animation with script kiddies and popup ad makers. Ch. 6, on form validation, was up my alley but following the author was painful because he kept referring to a variable "fV" that was defined with a self-referential, bizarrely nested syntax. Only at the end of the chapter did he mention that Ch. 5 first used this syntax. I had to go back to the previous chapter to get a clue. But only a clue because that chapter never really tried to explain why this extremely unconventional approach was used.
The author early on tries to make the case that his approach is better than the conventional one. I *think* I agree but as the chapters progressed, he made less and less effort to prove anything at all. I was very disappointed in this. I also did not like the odd way the braces in the scripts were handled. Because he did not line them up well, it was difficult to tell when a section of a script began or ended. The author recognized this in some cases by putting in comments:
} /* end 'if' */
} /* end 'for' */
It would have been better to match braces visibly. Yes, code alignment is a matter of taste so I cannot really hold that against him.
Some examples did not work quite as advertised. The type-ahead dropdown script did not work at all in Windows Firefox and worked only erratically in IE.
I liked the way the author oriented his examples to user-centered design. Ultimately, the key to the best implementations of JavaScripting is not the syntactical approach but how the functionality fits into the usability of what you are doing.
