Customer Reviews

JavaScript: The Missing Manual

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

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I thought the author's other "Missing Manual" on CSS was very good and said so. ( CSS: The Missing Manual ) I am not so sure about this one.

This book is meant to be a beginner book and it certainly does treat certain aspects of JavaScript well from that perspective. My problem is that the author has chosen to integrate a particular JavaScript framework, jQuery, into the examples, starting with the introductory chapter.

I have used jQuery and have a high opinion of it, esp. of its CSS-like selector syntax. However, I don't think I ever could have learned the basics of JavaScript using jQuery. jQuery has its own syntax and its own ways of doing things that are different from other JavaScript frameworks and certainly *much* different from generic JavaScript.

A true beginner is going to find it difficult separating what is applicable to the wide world of JavaScript from what will only be applicable in one particular circumstance.

Perhaps the book may be better labeled as a getting started with JavaScript and jQuery text.

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I have David's CSS book and was waiting for this book to come out. I can understand one of the author's reservations about this book being jQuery specific, but if you stop to think of it, is also one of its strengths. There are "n" number of Javascript books out there which are pretty good, but do not take you beyond beginning/inermediate Javascript programming.

Realistically and practically, in order to get anything useful done in a reasonable amount of time, you have to use one of the frameworks. It could be jQuery, Prototype/Scripty, Dojo, Yahoo, any of these frameworks will do. The author has chosen to use jQuery which is an excellent choice.

Actually, my nitpicking is on the other side, i.e., the author should have left beginning Javascript material to any one of the other books and simply focused on Javascript with jQuery. His presentation style is very effective and he obviously knows CSS/Javascript world very well. Even better, he can communicate it equally well.

If you are beyond the introductory phase in CSS/Javascript world and are looking to build something useful beyond the toy pages, this book along with his CSS book becomes very useful.

jQuery, without a doubt, is a superior framework. I prefer it to Prototype and Scriptaculous. I do not know Yahoo or Dojo so I cannot comment on them.

I would buy other books from David again. In fact, I would love to see an "advanced" book where he brings together all of his knowledge and communication skills for creating "professional" web front-ends. Keep the same tutorial format though.

As Brett mentioned, this book integrates jQuery (a popular javascript library) into examples. More than half of the book teaches you how to use the jQuery library to enhance user experiences. It won't teach you how to write XMLHTTPRequest from scrach. Instead, the book teaches you how to make Ajax requests with jQuery, which greatly simplifies the problem (1~10 lines of code). The book exposes you to real-world problems and the practical way of solving them (that is using javascript libraries such as jQuery).

I strongly recommend this book to those who know nothing about javascript/ajax or jQuery. It serves as a great introduction to both of the topics. After you finish this book, you will be quite comfortable with javascript syntax. And if you want, you can always read other books to further extend you knowledge of plain javascript (the javascript without any library).

Brett gives a 3-star rating. I feel it is worth more than three, but I agree that it would be better if the publisher named the book "Javascript with jQuery" like.

I've been saying for years that The Missing Manual line of books is one of the best publishing lines and 'JavaScript: The Missing Manual' keeps the tradition going. The thing that jumps out at me instantly is how RELEVANT this book is the Web 2.0 world. With heavy emphasis on AJAX, JQuery, interacting with Web 2.0 sites like Google Maps and the like, this book is fantastic for any and all JavaScript developers new and old. Packed with 500+ pages of material, the chapter listing is as follows:

01. Intro
02. Javascript 101
03. Logic & Control
04. Words, Numbers, Dates
05. Dynamically Modifying Web Pages
06. Events
07. Images
08. Navigation
09. Web Forms
10. Interface expansion
11. AJAX
12. Basic AJAX
13. Troubleshooting & Debugging
14. Javascripts next steps

My only complaint with this book is that I wish they had decided to publish this in COLOR. Many of TMM books are published in color and some don't require it but I think this one should have been.

Overall an exceptional book for JavaScript developers today and in the future.

AWESOME!

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

I haven't completed this book yet, so I will come back and update this review once I have, but I wanted to get something out there to convince others who might be on the fence about buying this book. First off, it's more of a jQuery book than it is a Javascript book. Sure jQuery is a library that runs on top of Javascript, but it's important to make that distinction. The first 100 pages or so of the book get you quickly up to speed with Javascript statements, variables, string arrays, functions, regular expressions, etc. The basics are covered quite well with a number of succinct and well-explained examples.

Up next the author covers the basics of modifying the document object model (DOM) or quite simply: adding, changing and removing HTML content on a page. He shows you the basic document object methods and how to do things "the hard way". He doesn't spend much time on the "hard way" and quickly introduces the lightweight, fast and widely accepted jQuery library. When I first heard about jQuery, I was skeptical. I like writing my own code. I like being able to understand the nuts and bolts of what is being interpreted or executed at runtime. Sadly, Javascript doesn't always run the same way on different browsers and different operating systems. Writing cross-browser code isn't impossible, in fact the SitePoint book Simply Javascript was a good tutorial on how to write your own "cross-browser" library, it's just that jQuery adds so much more. It adds in helper methods for selecting HTML elements on your page (the $ CSS selector syntax), cross-browser event handling, plug-in support, and much more. More and more people are starting to use jQuery and Microsoft and Nokia have even given it heavy endorsements.

Getting back to the book. I'm not quite finished yet, but gazing ahead in the chapters I see a lot of great stuff: enhancing forms input, forms validation, dynamic tooltips, sortable tables, interactive images, doing ajax with jQuery and more.

After this one, I'm going to go back to my jQuery in Action book and then tackle John Resig's (one of the primary authors of jQuery) book Secrets of the Javascript Ninja!

Whoever thought Javascript could be this much fun? I certainly didn't! I've always hated Javascript. Give me Windows Forms, WPF, Silverlight, VB6, MFC, anything... I've always despised Javascript programming. Maybe a little less now that jQuery is here... :)

There are lots of JavaScript books on the market now. Most of the time they are the same as any other book. With the recent influx of JavaScript books focusing on Ajax its difficult to find a book that focuses on the basics as well as showing you how to use a library in effective and practical ways.

JavaScript: The Missing Manual is really 2 books in one. The first part of the book (up to Chapter 5) focuses on teaching the reader the basics of JavaScript. From the basic syntax to conditional statements to objects. Then the book switches gears a bit and talks about JavaScript libraries and the most popular library so far: jQuery.

jQuery is a very popular and powerful library that many commercial websites now use (including Google) and should be understood by anybody wanting to further develop their JavaScript skills. The author talks about jQuery and how it can be used and then shows the reader in a couple chapters how it can be used in practical examples.

Examples are such as automatic pull quotes, event listeners, Page FAQ, effects, adding search in forms, form validation, and much more. I've never seen a jQuery book that the author uses so many practical examples. There are a few jQuery books by Packt publishing, but they are mainly reference books re-stating the jQuery documentation.

This book really goes into detail of how and why jQuery would be useful instead of just showing you how to do something and then moving on.

The author goes into detail about the jQuery UI project and then the last 2 chapters talks about how you can use jQuery with Ajax.

No JavaScript is perfect, but his book comes very close.

A great buy and I highly recommend it.

This book is worthless as an introductory text or even as "Manual" for Javascript. I am in a class learning Javascript and bought this book as a bolster to Dietel's worthless book (the school is trying to dump it as it is worthless). In this book the fundamentals one needs to know about Javascript is handed off to JQuery in this book...it is definitely NOT a missing manual on Javascript.

All this is not to say the book itself is worthless as ONCE YOU KNOW Javascript then the short cuts with JQuery are extremely beneficial. My experience with the Missing Manual series has to this point been great. They are usually books that teach you the program is greater depth than the manual that came with it and really show you the inner workings of the program.

All this to say as a Missing Manual it is a one star worthless book. As a text for those that know Javascript and really want to see what a framework like JQuery can do to speed your work flow its a five star. Since the book is a Missing Manual it gets one star.

I'm a self-taught, hobbyist web developer. Therefore, I appreciate lively and, most of all, clear explanations and examples in books that teach HTML, CSS and related technologies. As should be evident from my review's title, books by David McFarland are among the best at teaching someone like me.

I've read the author's Missing Manual books on CSS and Dreamweaver CS3 and have enjoyed their clarity, helpful tips and step-by-step approach. Having gotten half-way through the new Missing Manual for Javacript, I'm delighted to say that David McFarland has "kept up the good work." Having singled, doubled and tripled with these three Missing Manuals, I hope he "completes the circuit" with a PHP/MySQL book next.

Buy, read it and enjoy one of the best writers in the field.

I have just completed JavaScript: The Missing Manual. I am surprised at some of the negative reviews about this book. In my opinion, this is absolutely the best book for web designers who want to learn the basics JavaScript and also want to immediately take advantage of the most popular JavaScript library available.

I actually got interested in this book because of some of the negative reviews. I wanted to learn JavaScript quickly because I wanted to use jQuery on my web sites.

Before I bought this book, I read the introductory pages. In the About This Book section, the author says that the book will teach you the basics of JavaScript and programming, which it does. It will not teach you everything you need to know to build sophisticated, interactive Web pages. Instead the book shows you how to use jQuery and save a lot of time. So, after you learn JavaScript basics, you can start using the very cool jQuery plugins and add interactive functionality such as hiding or showing <divs>, creating cool lightbox galleries, inserting interactive google maps on the contact pages, and a lot of other things.

"Think of it this way: You could build a house by cutting down and milling your own lumber, constructing your own windows, doors, and doorframes, manufacturing your own tile, and so on. That 'do-it-yourself' approach is common to a lot of JavaScript books. But who has that kind of time? This book's approach is more like building a house by taking advantage of already built pieces and putting them together using basic skills. The end result will be a beautiful and functional house built in a fraction of the time it would take you to learn every step of the process."

So the question is: How much time do you have to learn JavaScript? If you're a web designer who wants to learn the basics of JavaScript quickly and start using very impressive js scripts, then this book is definitely for you. If you have a couple of years and want to become a JavaScript programmer, then this book is a great starting point. It's a mistake to dismiss this book because the author spends time on jQuery. If you want to be a full-fledge JS programmer, then jQuery can be an enormous help. You can download the uncompressed development version of jQuery and have great examples of sophisticated code to study, code that works and is cross-browser compatible.

You also have to be ready to learn JavaScript. If you don't have strong CSS skills, then you should first learn CSS before tackling JavaScript since CSS selectors are used to select parts of a web page to apply JavaScript (CSS: The Missing Manual is a good way to master CSS.)

One final comment. The author takes great care in clearly explaining Javascript code. The examples all work perfectly. This is a well-written technical book.

This book is excellent. The author's writing style makes it very easy to read and he effectively teaches you the material. He does kind of take you through baby steps, but he does it in such a way that he keeps your interest. I appreciated that when he referred to something already covered he would give you the page number(s) where he covered it. He also breifly repeats things which I found very helpful. I especially liked that he keeps it simple; unlike many technical authors who seem to put too much emphasis on trying to sound smart with using really big words and long bloated sentences.

This book should be a template for how technical manuals should be written.