Customer Reviews

Java Script Introductory Concepts and Techniques

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the book was not descriptive and outdate

I received this book free, and I still think it's a rip-off, just because it takes up shelf space. I can't imagine why anyone would pay $45.95 for it.

The book's fine for learning really simple things like the <SCRIPT> tag, but as for anything more advanced, forget it. Two entire pages are dedicated to showing the process for saving a file in Notepad. Now there's a tricky concept.

The "projects" in which all the JavaScript is taught are way too specific, and are of the type that really annoy most Web surfers--the flickering background, the scrolling message, and the JavaScript alert (which, I admit, is a necessary evil in any JavaScript book, but it should at least be presented as such). The book doesn't explain why the examples work, it just tells you what to type. If you want to go farther with the examples, or try something new, you're going to be completely on your own.

I haven't tried any of the examples in the book, simply because I don't have any reason to use, say, an alert informing me that "it takes one tree to make 11,500 sheets of 8.5 X 11 20 pound paper". But I checked out the reviews for a sister book, "JavaScript Complete Concepts and Techniques," and apparently there are major flaws in the examples throughout. I wouldn't be surprised if the same were true for this book as well.

Several of the exercises require starting from a file on a data disk, which is not conveniently located inside the back cover. Instead, you'll need to download it off the Internet.

Again, I see no reason to spend almost fifty dollars on 200 pages of useless information. The only reason it contains so many pages is that each of the many, many screenshots in the book takes up fully a third of a page; if it were just text, I doubt it would amount to much more than 70 or 80 pages. I was so frustrated with my free book that I eventually went out and bought "JavaScript for the World Wide Web" by Tom Negrino and Dori Smith, which is infinitely many times better. Please don't make the same mistake I did.

This book was very helpful in laying a foundation for javascript programming and introductory web design techniques.

The book leads the user through the initial steps of using javascript. Well written for the visual learner. It gives you enough of the need-to-know to get your feet wet and prepare you for the more advanced user reference guides.