JavaScript Programming for the Absolute Beginner [Paperback]

Andy Harris (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0761534105 | ISBN-13: 978-0761534105 | Publication Date: June 14, 2001 | Edition: 1

This book not only teachers JavaScript - a great programming 'gateway' language - it also teaches readers the fundamental programming concepts they need to grasp in order to learn any computer language. Plus, it uses game creation as a teaching tool. The goal of the series is adaptive learning. Readers will be able to utilize these skills when learning their next programming language.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Andy Harris began teaching computing at the university level in the late 1980s as a part-time job. Since 1995, he has been a full-time lecturer at the Computer Science Department of Indiana University - Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI). He now manages the IUPUI Streaming Media Lab and teaches classes in several programming languages. Andy resides in Noblesville, Indiana.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Course Technology PTR; 1 edition (June 14, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761534105
• ISBN-13: 978-0761534105
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #116,827 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I live near Indianapolis, Indiana.

I am a lecturer in computer science at Indiana University / Purdue University - Indianapolis (Yes, that IS officially the longest university name on the planet... we call it IUPUI)

I was an army brat. I grew up in many parts of the Eastern United States and in Japan.

I've been interested in computing since the early eighties, when my brother and I took the money we were saving for a car and blew it on a TRS-80 model 1 with the built-in Japanese character set. (That machine is still in my garage. Don't tell my wife.)

My first career was as a special education teacher. I taught young adults with severe disabilities for several years. I really enjoyed my job and my students. I learned a lot about teaching through that experience.

While doing special ed, I kept my interest in computing, doing some freelance programming and writing about computer topics. Eventually, I became a lab instructor in the computer science program at IUPUI.

I moved to IUPUI as a full-time gig in 1995. Since then, I have been involved in creating a certificate of applied computer science. I have also worked on building a distributed education program. I especially love designing curricula using emerging and interesting technology and ideas.

I have taught many applied CS topics, but there is always more to learn.
Right now my focus tends to be on applied computing in programming languages, game programming, and mobile computing.

My favorite part about writing is hearing from readers. It's great when somebody sends me a link to a game or project they've written using one of my books. I'd love to get a line from you about one of my books, what you'd like to see me work on next, or just to say hi. I hope my writing feels like a conversation, and I'm looking forward to hearing from your side of the talk.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars learning javascript, March 20, 2003

By 

chicken260 (North Charleston, SC) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: JavaScript Programming for the Absolute Beginner (Paperback)

I have been trying to learn Javascript for a while now, and I can honestly say this book is extremely good for those just starting out. If you're looking for a reference book, look elsewhere, because this book is purely for learning.

Each chapter has one main project highlighting the main ideas of that chapter. They briefly present each at the beginning of each chapter, then teach you the different elements involved in that main project, within mini-projects. By the time you get to the end of the chapter, you already have an idea (or know exactly) how to put together the different individual elements to form that main project they showed you at the beginning of the chapter. The projects are fun, and they teach you new elements while building on things you learned from previous chapters.

This book reminds me a little of a textbook, in that there are exercises at the end of each chapter for you to do. This is helpful as practice, but what I dislike about it is that if for some reason you get stuck and cannot figure out how to do one of the exercises, neither the book nor the included CD-ROM provides you with explanations or answers for the exercises. Sometimes an exercise builds upon a previous exercise as well, which complicates it. For example, exercise #1 asks you to do something. Then exercise #2 may ask you to change the code you came up with for exercise #1, so that the code will do something slightly different. The problem is if you get stuck on exercise #1, you're at a dead end, unless the proverbial lightbulb suddenly goes off over your head.

The reason I like this book is that for the mini-projects, he shows you the code and the visual effects of the code first, and explains it afterwards. It may seem like a very trivial thing, but for some reason I don't catch on when I use the books that explain things first and then present the code.

A puzzling thing I noticed about the code within the book does not concern javascript at all, but html. Consistently throughout the first three chapters and the beginning of the fourth, he used <center><center> tags within codes, and only has one closing </center> tag for each set of double center tags. At first I thought it was a mistake, but it's too consistent for that. Every single example of code from the beginning of the first chapter to the middle of the fourth displays that. I just found it very curious.

Despite my criticisms, this book is definitely one of the better books I've read in my quest to learn javascript. It's fun, it's the only book I know of that teaches you javascript through making simple games, and except for the exercises not having answers/explanations, it's a very intuitive book.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply a fun book, October 16, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: JavaScript Programming for the Absolute Beginner (Paperback)

Often computer books attempt to produce a book that teaches while focusing on fun, real-world level examples. Rarely do publishers and authors pull this style of book off in a manner that is useful. JavaScript Programming for the absolute beginner is a book written by Andy Harris and published by Premier Press, formerly PrimaTech, that comes about as close as you can to pulling this off.

JavaScript Programming is aimed at the beginner who is new to programming. This book teaches many of the basics of using JavaScript while creating actual programs. In the early chapters the programs are relatively simple. This includes color pickers and a mad lib game. As the book progresses, you continue learning the programming topics needed to use JavaScript, but at the same time you learn how to create a number of games--yes, games. There are games such as a dog fight game where two players fly little planes around the screen and try to shoot their opponent. When working with concepts such as arrays, you learn to also create a basketball game.

The book is effective at teaching both, key concepts in JavaScript and basic game development for JavaScript. For the absolute beginner to JavaScripts, this is a great book to start with.

For the experienced JavaScript developer, this book is still worth looking into. If you are interested in doing games, or in doing graphics manipulation in your JavaScripts, then you may still find this book worth the price, especially when you look at the CD.

The CD for this book contains all the sample code from the book as well as a number of other games including BioBattleship, DropZone, Clix, IceBlocks, and more. There are also a number of examples on the CD that use a game library that is available online.

Overall, it is my opinion that this is one of the neatest books for learning the basics of JavaScript programming. Additionally, it is a fantastic book if you are interested in getting started with game programming using JavaScript. Even if you are not interested in games, this is still a great book to check out!

There is one thing I did not manage to figure out regarding this book. The cover has a very cool looking 3D Tetris block. This same graphic is animated on the CD. Additionally, Tetris blocks are used as design elements throughout the book. I never found a Tetris game in the book or on the CD. One of my pet pieves is when a cover on a book indicates something is in the book that isn't. If you find the Tetris game in the book or on the CD, let me know. Even if it isn't there, the book is still worth the cost.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Excellent teaching, but a bit outdated., March 20, 2007

By 

The Bob - See all my reviews

This review is from: JavaScript Programming for the Absolute Beginner (Paperback)

When I got this book, it was the second book I got to learn Javascript with. The other book had poor teaching methods, leaving a lot of blanks for the reader to fill in.

This book didn't seem to have that problem at first. It was very good at teaching concepts and syntax at the same time. However, as I got into later chapters, I noticed that the code it had me type, though identical to what was in the book, did not produce the specified results, or even generated errors.

I skipped ahead to some of the later examples. Fortunately, the CD that comes with the book has all the examples pre-typed out, as well as files that go along with the lessons (before and after files, if you will). Many of the files in the latest chapters didn't function at all.

About this time I checked the printing date (2002), and realized I was probably dealing with coding systems that had been updated, as virtually all web-related coding systems I've studied (HTML/XHTML, CSS, PHP) all seem to have updates and variations every year or so.

All in all, the author and publisher did a good job of teaching, and I'd recommend their work....but, unless I've made a major mistake, I wouldn't recommend this one...unless it gets revised to keep up with the current technology.