Professional JavaScript for Web Developers (Wrox Professional Guides) [Paperback]

Nicholas C. Zakas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 22, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0764579088 | ISBN-13: 978-0764579080 | Edition: 1

• Dispels the myth that JavaScript is a "baby" language and demonstrates why it is the scripting language of choice used in the design of millions of Web pages and server-side applications
• Quickly covers JavaScript basics and then moves on to more advanced topics such as object-oriented programming, XML, Web services, and remote scripting
• Addresses the many issues that Web application developers face, including internationalization, security, privacy, optimization, intellectual property issues, and obfuscation
• Builds on the reader's basic understanding of HTML, CSS, and the Web in general

This book is also available as part of the 4-book JavaScript and Ajax Wrox Box (ISBN: 0470227818). This 4-book set includes:

• Professional JavaScript for Web Developers (ISBN: 0764579088)
• Professional Ajax 2nd edition (ISBN: 0470109491)
• Professional Web 2.0 Programming (ISBN: 0470087889)
• Professional Rich Internet Applications: Ajax and Beyond (ISBN: 0470082801)

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Professional JavaScript for Web Developers

JavaScript is an important feature of every major browser because it enables enhanced user interaction on both Web sites and Web applications. While exploring everything from its history to today's advanced features, this book shows you how to use this powerful language to its full potential in order to develop your own applications that solve the business problems facing Web developers today.

You'll gain a clear understanding of the components that make up a JavaScript implementation, plus you'll examine critical areas including events, regular expressions, and browser detection techniques so that you can build dynamic user interfaces. You'll also learn how to extend the language to meet your specific requirements as well as create seamless client-server communication without intermediaries such as Java or hidden frames.

What you will learn from this book

• ECMAScript basics, object-oriented programming techniques, and important Document Object Model (DOM) concepts
• How to implement regular expressions for data validation and string manipulation
• Methods for handling events to tie JavaScript to a Web user interface
• Techniques for validating data, sorting tables, and dealing with errors
• How to communicate between JavaScript and browser plugins
• All about security issues, optimization, and intellectual property protections

Who this book is for

This book is for Web developers who want to use JavaScript to dramatically improve the usability of their Web sites and Web applications.

Wrox Professional guides are planned and written by working programmers to meet the real-world needs of programmers, developers, and IT professionals. Focused and relevant, they address the issues technology professionals face every day. They provide examples, practical solutions, and expert education in new technologies, all designed to help programmers do a better job.

About the Author

Nicholas C. Zakas has a BS in Computer Science from Merrimack College and an MBA from Endicott College. He is the author of Professional JavaScript for Web Developers (Wiley 2005), Professional Ajax (1st and 2nd editions, Wiley 2007 and 2007) as well as several online articles. Nicholas works for Yahoo! as a frontend engineer and has worked in web development for more than 6 years, during which time he has helped develop web solutions in use at some of the largest companies in the world. Nicholas can be reached through his web site at www.nczonline.net.

Product Details

• Paperback: 672 pages
• Publisher: Wrox; 1 edition (April 22, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764579088
• ISBN-13: 978-0764579080
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #965,953 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 44 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars For Intermediate and Advanced Programmers May 16, 2005

By John Matlock

Format:Paperback

The key to knowing about this book is the word "Professional" in the title. There are other books aimed at the complete beginner that will start off with a much simpler "Here's How" approach to get you started. This book instead starts off with the history, the basic ECMAScript standards and a discussion on the Object nature of JavaScript. It's written by a working programmer to fill the real world needs of other working programmers. It does this job very well.

Further, the book is new and up to date. JavaScript is an evolving language as the web grows to demand increasing capabilities. Some of these features that now get full chapters in this book include: XML, Client-Server communications, Web Services, interacting with Plug-Ins.

The last chapter talks about the next step in the development of JavaScript, with cautions that this material is still preliminary and subject to change.

Excellent book for the intermediate to advanced JavaScript programmer.

34 of 38 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The most current coverage of JavaScript to date June 6, 2005

By Foti Massimo

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Many poor quality books on this topic had been published along the years, helping JavaScript into becoming the less understood programming languages of all time. It's nice to see how finally there is another JavaScript book worth reading apart from the classic titles by Goodman and Flanagan. The book is not aimed at beginners; you either have some solid JavaScript knowledge or a decent programming experience with other languages. Compared to other titles this stands out for the chapters covering modern techniques: DOM, Client-Server Communication, XML/XSLT, and Web Services. I would say it's the most current coverage of JavaScript to date. In my own opinion, only some poor editing and organisation prevent it from reaching five stars.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific book on modern, multi-browser Javascript November 2, 2005

By Michael Shaffer

Format:Paperback

I don't get the negative reviews that are splattered around here. The positive reviews are dead on: this is a great book. It is probably the most advanced, most modern application of Javascript ever written. I'm not speaking too far out of line since I'm fairly certain that I've bought and read them all. Javascript has been viewed as a toy or a fun little scripting language but not one that serious developers use. The author takes great care in completely debunking this theory by demonstrating advanced and useful techniques that push Javascript to the edge, without forcing it to do unnatural things. It's also extremely honest and forward about Javascript's limitations. I also appreciated the complete non-biased presentation of the multiple browsers and their slightly varied approaches to implementing Javascript. Previously, advanced Javascript books (and there weren't many!) focused on IE/JScript only but now there is a legitimate force out there not using IE! I'm am anxiously waiting for his follow-up book on AJAX technologies. Both Javascript and AJAX are hardly new, but Zakas does a commendable job here bringing browser based client side scripting into the 21st century.

I teach a Jr/Sr High programming class and we use Javascript as the language and this book as the text. Students develop using OOP patterns and practice good solid design -- which Javascript allows. Not a teacher by trade, my day job is developing client technologies and user interfaces for the financial sector.

41 of 50 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Handle with extreme care July 16, 2007

By C. S. Ward

Format:Paperback

I have enormous problems with this dated, confused and 'gappy' book, and advise would be readers to exercise _extreme_ caution with it, particularly with the examples, a great number of which are a long, long way from currently accepted best practice.

I don't believe that "Programmer to Programmer" describes this book well. The author's confusing and patchy descriptions of language fundamentals are not useful to those readers who are highly experienced in other programming languages such as C or C++. Neither does it seem that the author has clearly identified the target reader, as I imagine that the book will bewilder some beginners too. For example, for reasons unknown the author seemed to feel the need to embark on a "fundamentals of OOP" tutorial, a subject quite inappropriate for a "programmer-to-programmer" text as it should be taken as read, and one which is in any case too large to be adequately covered in a few pages. I imagine this may merely succeed in confusing novice programmers, who really do need to consult a proper introduction elsewhere. And why on earth did the author feel that a quick descent into UML was appropriate at the start of the third chapter? Another short section is devoted to explaining bit pattern operations, a subject that is arguably best left to real textbooks on programming fundamentals for beginners. At the same time, in many, many cases discussions of basic topics that experienced programmers would expect to find are simply absent. Javascript is in many ways highly unusual as a programming language, and because of the familiar syntax, C, C++ or Java programmers may be initially led to believe that its behaviour will be close to their expectations, yet this is not the case.... For this reason it is crucial for a reference text to take care to tick off these crucial language-conversion issues properly.

Returning to the code examples, I have many problems with their poor quality. A sizeable number do not conform to current "unobtrusive" best practise. I can understand why this might have been done for reasons of brevity, but that doesn't excuse the poor example this sets. There is no discussion of accessibility, which is unforgiveable. And some of examples feature outdated, broken or deprecated techniques. The discussion of hacks to bolster up browser support for addEventListener, for example. Browser-sniffing, a deprecated technique features far too much, indeed a worrying number of examples rely on it. The author of this review is nowhere near competent to comment in detail on the quality of every code example, but the poor techniques clearly visible in some have the effect of casting doubt on the whole.

Despite being published in 2005, the book is simply too old to cover the recent tidal wave of high quality libraries which are now available, and which properly deal with some of the most difficult issues in basic javascript development, issues which this book simply does not acknowledge. The book deserves criticism for being yet one more contributor to the vast amount of poor quality javascript code on the web, yet of course it has to be said that any paper book will inevitable be vulnerable to the problem of obsolescence, since javascript support in browsers is so poor currently and techniques are changing rapidly right now.

This review is unapologetically harsh, yet I am not going to say "do not buy this book" outright. Although dated and harmful for beginners, there is a lot of material in this book, and for very experienced programmers in other programming languages who are forewarned about the book's unreliability it will at least give some idea of the issues and will provide a starting point for gathering a list of topics to be researched. But many readers may be simply better off consulting the blogs of the various acknowledged javascript gurus instead. Reading Brendan Eich's own articles would be a start. Read more ›

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Also for semi-beginners August 30, 2005

By G. te Velde

Format:Paperback

The book covers a broad range of (very practical) topics, with practical cases worked out in detail that are not only useful in themselves but also implicitly clarify techniques. For me the book also contained quite a few eye-openers, possibly because I'm relatively a beginner in this field. This also illustrates, however, that you don't need to be a professional to read this book. I cannot judge how much it brings for someone with substantially more background than I have.