I thought I had kept up with things since the last version. This book clued me in to new, simpler techniques becoming practical solutions only now - now that IE7 is so clearly on the way out.
Much of the book was re-written. There were a few issues that remained a bit elusive after reading the previous version (V5) and V6 cleared them up for me.
After studying chapter 15 on scripting documents, I stopped the press and made a number of important updates to my utilities file - streamlining functions that heavily supported IE 7. I changed a number of my websites to no longer support IE7 - this book gave me the information and courage to do so (the author did not suggest such a move, but it only made sense to me after getting myself up-to-snuff on the modern DOM). My code is now faster and leaner and much much much easier to follow (and debug if ever necessary) by using up-to-date basic dom methodologies such as:
A. Element.prototype to add some important/simple dom navigation methods to all elements (next(), previous() ..)
B. cssClass property to more easily, efficiently, and accurately deal with element classes (whereas I had a lot of code to do these functions and avoid RegExp for efficiency, now my methods simply pass cssClass with a simple RegExp as a fallback for IE8/9 which don't support cssClass. My perspective now is to NOT provide robust fallback for old IE, but only minimal anticipating users will make the jump from IE8 directly to IE 10/11 when their old PCs finally crap out (for those who use IE).
C. use of "data-" element attributes, which allow HTML to validate. I used to wrestle with confusing multiple classes to pass data so my html would validate - or I'd write special server / js scripts to attach data to elements as JS objects after the page loaded.
These examples aren't particularly the new sexy HTML5 initiatives, but without this book it might have taken me years to learn of them and to understand them enough to actually put them into play. And by the way, the book does a good job explaining the many HTML 5 initiatives - but I would first scan the pages to see if they were practical for my use and whether they were widely supported. But it's the small, detailed, practical things used in work-a-day scripting that makes this book so important to me.
I can't say this is a book for beginners only because of its length (1000+ pages) - but after learning JS on my own I wish I had read V5 of this book first as the others I read were all either somewhat outdated or too skimpy in important areas. This is really the only one that I read that goes into detail on the practical application of JS in client side scripting. It's the only JS book I use a reference.
My only criticism is that the book includes an entire chapter on jQuery (65 pages). I don't see the need for re-learning jQuery given browsers are moving along nicely toward standards compliance anyway. But the book would still weigh almost as much without the jQuery chapter.
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Javascript: The Definitive Guide: Master the World's Most-Used Programming Language
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4.6 out of 5
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This books covers a ton!
I'm new to javascript and coding in general, this book goes through everything!I haven't been through all of it.. because it's huge! this is a thick, heavy book full of great information.If you're trying to learn more about Javascript and want detailed information about a variety of topics, get this book! also the format and organization is really friendly to the eyes, I don't have to look around the pages too much to understand what's being taught.
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Gary Woodfine
Probably the best programming book you'll ever buy!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 1, 2014