Javascript Programmer's Reference (Programmer to Programmer) [ILLUSTRATED] (Mass Market Paperback)

by Cliff Wootton (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
JavaScript Programmer's Reference documents JavaScript, JScript, and ECMAScript to the degree that they're standardized, and goes on to catalog the extensions major browser publishers have added to the languages. In essence, this book is a resource for finding out how the major browsers (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, and Opera) implement their Document Object Models (DOMs), both standard and proprietary, and how they access DOM elements through JavaScript and similar scripting languages.

This is a reference, so don't expect it to teach you JavaScript through any sort of tutorial (though reading the object descriptions can be very illuminating, indeed). Cliff Wootton has chosen to organize his work alphabetically, like a giant encyclopedia of objects, reserved words, operators, filters, and other aspects of JavaScript and the DOM standards. A cross-reference that associates individual properties, methods, and event handlers with the objects to which they belong appears as an appendix. Once you've located the entry of the object you want, you'll have easy access to inheritance information, a syntax summary, and plain-English advice on what the object does. Tables provide implementation details for each property, method, and event handler, so you know which versions of which browsers support the language feature you want to use. There also are references to standards documents, and, sometimes, illustrations of how to use the language element in working code. Illustrations are rare but generally effective in clarifying the significance of language elements and the relationships among objects.

A cool feature is Wootton's documentation of common errors and incorrect assumptions. For example, he's included an entry on Bar.visibility, a nonexistent property sometimes assumed to exist in the Netscape Navigator object model. The correct property is Bar.visible, the author points out. The book also has some strange ways of doing things: Operators and other non-character entries don't appear up front, before the "A" entries, as is conventional. They've been transliterated, if that's the word, so you have to look up "Add" in order to find out about the + operator. Overall, this is a fine JavaScript reference, made excellent by its companion CD-ROM that includes the entire body of printed reference material (plus some extra) in searchable form. --David Wall

Topics covered: The JavaScript, JScript, and ECMAScript scripting languages, and their implementations in popular browsers as well as in standards documents. Coverage includes JavaScript through version 1.5, JScript through version 5.5, and ECMAScript through version 3. The DOM1 standard is covered fully and the DOM2 standard is covered to the extent it's implemented in Netscape Navigator 6. Effectively, this means coverage includes Netscape Navigator through version 6.0, Internet Explorer through version 5.5, and Opera through version 5. There's also some coverage of server-side JavaScript under Netscape Enterprise Server.

Product Description
JavaScript is the scripting language of the Web. Its widespread use in web applications, and support in all modern browsers and in server-side and administration environments, make it an essential part of the programmers' toolkit.

Complexity and confusion in JavaScript come not from the language, but from the number of different implementations, each with widely varying support for different APIs and standards. Written from extensive programming experience gained in developing components for a major website, this book helps you navigate those difficulties.

The accompanying CD not only presents this entire book in PDF format, fully hyperlinked and viewlable with Acrobat Reader (tm), but provides a cross-referenced, lexical reference that includes over 3500 entries, giving an even more comprehensive, browser-based companion to the book.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 973 pages
• Publisher: Wrox Press (February 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1861004591
• ISBN-13: 978-1861004598
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,204,841 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Reference!, March 23, 2001

By	"dtsdar" (Boston) - See all my reviews

This book definitely deserves 5 stars right now! Perhaps in 2-3 years it will appear dated as browsers and standards evolve. But for right now, this is _the_ Javascript/DOM reference to own. Wootton has seemingly gone to great lengths to compile a comprehensive reference, the likes of which I have yet to see in print or on the Web. As far as tutorials and most other forms of hand-holding go, you won't find any-it is a reference afterall.

Cross-browser compatability is of critical importance for most of us when working with Javascript/DOM and that fact was not lost on Wootton. Most every topic has a table of supporting implementations. And while this feature is certainly not unique to only this book, it is up-to-date, covering IE 3.0-5.5, NS 3.0-6.0, Opera 3-5, Netscape Enterprise Server, the ECMAScript 3rd edition standard, and DOM 1-3. The format of the data is rather good as well, better than many of the Wrox books I have seen to date.

What I liked best about the book is the CDROM that comes with it. It contains the full compilation of 3,500 topics (!!!) in HTML and Acrobat files, only half of which could find room in the book (the book is roughly 973 pages long already, if you doubled that you couldn't lift it ;-). They have a similar look-and-feel to Java API docs. A very handy tool for Web development teams!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Decent reference that lacks detail and examples, June 8, 2001

By	Luke "devbooks" (Tucson, AZ USA) - See all my reviews

I like to call this book enhanced "intellisense", for those of you familiar with Microsoft development environments. It basically is a listing of objects and all of their methods and properties on different browsers. But it offers little detail such as examples. It will give you a "WARNING" about a particular method, but often doesn't tell you what you're being warned about.

If you already know how to use a javascript method but are just curious about which browsers support it, this book is helpful. Otherwise, you should purchase "JavaScript: The Definitive Guide" by Flanagan. I can't wait until Flanagan comes up with a fourth edition because the latest one is getting outdated, but it is by far the best JavaScript book.

JavaScript Programmer's Reference is just not worth the money. Most of the information it provides is available via help files, and the book does not provide an useful index, but instead lumps everything into alphabetical order. Very disappointing.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very much useless, May 20, 2003

By A Customer

This is alphabetically arrangement of unrelated concepts that only have in common that theyre are linked to JavaScript.

This is pretty much useless if you are looking for an anwer to a meaningful question. It is only useful in the case where you know the class/method and are looking for the table "which browser does it support it".

I definitely do not recommend it.