JavaScript Unleashed (3rd Edition) [Paperback]

R. Allen Wyke (Author), Richard Wagner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 23, 2000 | Series: Unleashed

JavaScript Unleashed, Third Edition serves as a reference to the JavaScript language for the high-end programmer as well as a guide for developing JavaScript applications from the ground up. The topics most important to the intermediate to advanced Javascript programmer are covered, including Web security, integrating JavaScript with Java, and forms and data validation. Other topics include creating special effects with JavaScript, controlling layers with JavaScript, DHTML and Cascading Style Sheets, and using lookup tables in JavaScript. Some of the new topics covered are Internet Explorer 5, Active Server Pages, Netscape Plug-in autoinstalls and applets digital signature verification, and content layering.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

JavaScript Unleashed, Third Edition serves as a reference to the JavaScript language for the high-end programmer as well as a guide for developing JavaScript applications from the ground up. The topics most important to the intermediate to advanced Javascript programmer are covered, including Web security, integrating JavaScript with Java, and forms and data validation. Other topics include creating special effects with JavaScript, controlling layers with JavaScript, DHTML and Cascading Style Sheets, and using lookup tables in JavaScript. Some of the new topics covered are Internet Explorer 5, Active Server Pages, Netscape Plug-in autoinstalls and applets digital signature verification, and content layering.

About the Author

Allen Wyke is Practice Manager at Engage Technologies, and has developed Internet sites for several leading companies. His books include Pure JavaScript and The Perl 5 Programmer's Reference.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1024 pages
• Publisher: Sams; 3 edition (June 23, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067231763X
• ISBN-13: 978-0672317637
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.2 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,189,554 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just get it!, August 2, 2000

By 

"t_noda" (Cupertino, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: JavaScript Unleashed (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

It's exactly what I wanted! There are many points I recommend this book to you. 1st, it covers the most appropriate issues. Basically, this book focuses on client-side development and covers almost all of it. Some books cover even server-side issues such as servlet, ASP, JSP while they are lacking in the main subject, client-side issues. If we want to learn server-side issues, we can just pick these kinds of books (Sun's JSP book is good). 2nd, it's well organized. For people who don't have a time to read everything, this well-organized book is really helpful. There are 35 chapters and each chapter pick up precise one distinct topic. You can skim and scan whichever you want. 3rd, a lot of useful sample codes and graphical outputs enable us to learn JavaScript easily. The definition of good programming books is how much they contain sample codes. This is it. 4th, If you are beginner for JavaScript, just take this. I'm a Java programmer but I'm a beginner for JavaScript and even HTML. However, this book helped me without any extra beginner books. Anyway, it's worthy of $50.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great for getting you started, but..., October 11, 2000

By 

Poplife (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: JavaScript Unleashed (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

As a practical introduction to the language, this book was pretty much what I was looking for. And it's pretty readable, much more so than a lot of other big fat JavaScript books I looked at. So I guess I'd recommend it. But a few major provisos:

1) if you've done any programming in another language before, you will find the first couple of hundred pages heavy going, as it explains very basic concepts in excessive detail. But you still need to read these chapters as a few things come up which are peculiar to JavaScript.

2) It's just plain wrong, or incomplete in places. For instance, the browser-detection example given doesn't actually work because of some basic errors in the code. And it neglects to mention a lot of the vital peculiarities where Netscape's JavaScript and IE's JScript diverge in their behaviour. If the book is to be believed you'd think all Javascript 1.2 code would work on the latest Netscape and Microsoft browsers. It won't. It's just not that easy unfortunately.

3) Good for learning, but not much use as a "reference". Hard to find the info you want while you're coding, and when you do find it it's frequently too sketchy to give you any insight into your problem.

So don't rely on this book as your only JavaScript reference. You will have to look elsewhere to find out the truth and get your scripts working properly. Particularly if you want your code to work in Explorer.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best JavaScript Book Available!, December 2, 2000

By 

"born2bwild" (Greenwich Villiage, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: JavaScript Unleashed (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

For the life of me I don't understand why this book hasn't rated higher here?

"JavaScript Unleased" is clearly written with to-the-point explanations. The examples are real world and fit in nicely with each chapter while the book covers the latest version of JavaScript (1.5) completely. The David Flanagan/O'Reilly and Danny Goodman/Bible books are ancient history from 1998 already! I also feel this book is more complete than the Flanagan book and Danny Goodman's explanations are too wordy.

If your are an intermediate to experienced developer buy this book you won't regret it.