Professional JavaScript for Web Developers 3rd Edition

by Nicholas C. Zakas (Author)

181 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-1118026694

ISBN-10: 1118026691

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This book provides a developer-level introduction along with more advanced and useful features of JavaScript. Coverage includes:

JavaScript use with HTML to create dynamic webpages, language concepts including syntax and flow control statements
variable handling given their loosely typed nature
built-in reference types such as object and array
object-oriented programing
powerful aspects of function expressions
Browser Object Model allowing interaction with the browser itself
detecting the client and its capabilities
Document Object Model (DOM) objects available in DOM Level 1
how DOM Levels 2 and 3 augmented the DOM
events, legacy support, and how the DOM redefined how events should work
enhancing form interactions and working around browser limitations
using the
JavaScript API changes in HTML5
how browsers handle JavaScript errors and error handling
features of JavaScript used to read and manipulate XML data
the JSON data format as an alternative to XML
Ajax techniques including the use of XMLHttpRequest object and CORS
complex patterns including function currying, partial function application, and dynamic functions
offline detection and storing data on the client machine
techniques for JavaScript in an enterprise environment for better maintainability

This book is aimed at three groups of readers: Experienced object-oriented programming developers looking to learn JavaScript as it relates to traditional OO languages such as Java and C++; Web application developers attempting to enhance site usability; novice JavaScript developers.

Nicholas C. Zakas worked with the Web for over a decade. He has worked on corporate intranet applications used by some of the largest companies in the world and large-scale consumer websites such as MyYahoo! and the Yahoo! homepage. He regularly gives talks at companies and conferences regarding front-end best practices and new technology.

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Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Get up to date on the latest ways to use JavaScript in web development

If you want to achieve JavaScript's full potential, it is critical to understand its nature, history, and limitations. To that end, this updated version of the bestseller by veteran author and JavaScript guru Nicholas C. Zakas covers JavaScript from its very beginning to the present-day incarnations including the DOM, Ajax, and HTML5. Zakas shows you how to extend this powerful language to meet specific needs and create dynamic user interfaces for the web that blur the line between desktop and internet. By the end of the book, you'll have a strong understanding of the significant advances in web development as they relate to JavaScript so that you can apply them to your next website.

Professional JavaScript for Web Developers:

Offers a detailed discussion of the components that make up a JavaScript implementation
Zeroes in on new and emerging APIs such as the Selectors API, Web Workers, and Cross-Document Messaging
Explores object-oriented programming in JavaScript
Shows how to implement drag and drop file upload with Ajax and the File API
Highlights the new core language features introduced in ECMAScript5
Explains how to work with data formats such as XML and JSON
Looks at what's coming in ECMAScript Harmony
Walks you through creating offline-capable web applications

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Wrox Professional guides are written by working developers to address everyday needs. 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 is a front-end architect who honed his skills working at Yahoo! for five years. He has worked in web development for over a decade, developing web solutions for some of the largest companies in the world. He is the author of previous editions of Professional JavaScript for Web Developers and a coauthor of Professional Ajax.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Wrox; 3rd edition (January 18, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 960 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1118026691
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1118026694
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.51 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.1 x 1.9 x 9.2 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,135,819 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #29 in Flash Web Design
- #406 in Computer & Video Game Design
- #525 in JavaScript Programming (Books)

Customer Reviews:
181 ratings

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Nicholas C. Zakas

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Nicholas C. Zakas is a front-end consultant who specializes in user interface design and implementation for web applications using JavaScript, Dynamic HTML, CSS, XML, and XSLT. Has has 15 years of web development experience and spent nearly five years at Yahoo! in various roles, including principal front end engineer for the Yahoo! homepage and contributor to the Yahoo! User Interface (YUI) library, having written the Cookie Utility, Profiler, and YUI Test.

Nicholas is the author of Professional JavaScript for Web Developers and High Performance JavaScript, a co-author on Professional Ajax, and a contributor to Even Faster Web Sites. He has also written for several online sites such as WebReference, Sitepoint, the YUI Blog, A List Apart, and the Web Performance Advent Calendar.

Nicholas regularly gives talks about web development, JavaScript, and best practices. He has given talks at companies such as Yahoo!, LinkedIn, Google, Netflix, TripAdvisor, and NASA, and conferences such as the Ajax Experience, the Rich Web Experience, OSCON, WebDirections, Fronteers, and Velocity.

Through his writing and speaking, Nicholas seeks to teach others the valuable lessons he’s learned while working on some of the most popular and demanding web applications in the world. He firmly believes that no difficult problem should need to be solved more than once.

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2 star		3%
1 star		4%

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Mike

Overall useful for experienced developers of any language

Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2016

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Overall useful for experienced developers of any language. That is to say, if you are a beginner programmer, I would find another book (and language quite frankly). As far as the good, this book seems to cover everything that deals with JavaScript and the browser without bringing in frameworks and libraries. The reason I rate this 4 instead of 5 is because it's organized a bit strange. For example, the author spends a lot of time talking about what variables are, the different types of variables (primitive values and references), and how they are copied. The thing is that there aren't any surprises here, and he could have explained this in about half the space. Additionally, he talks a lot about how scope, variables, and execution context pertain to objects prior to ever explaining what objects are. He then calls out with and try/catch. Then he only explains with, but the example cannot be executed yet because with is a way to assign execution context to a single object. He doesn't explain try/catch for JavaScript at all. Moreover, if you read JavaScript: The Good Parts by Crockford, he explains why with is actually quite ambiguous and will silently create undefined global variables if you attempt to access undefined properties. No mention of this in Professional JavaScript

This is all just to get to this point: There is a lot of good information here. However, the information isn't well organized, and I am not sure who the audience is. Some of the information is also incomplete. If you're an experienced programmer learning JavaScript this is a fine starting point. There are other starting points to consider too. For my tastes, I would prefer something that is better organized and went more indepth into the language features and spent less time explaining standard concepts in OO languages. Or do so and market the book as a beginner's book.

2 people found this helpful

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Babak Aghili

Wish I had found this much earlier before going to other famous books

Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2014

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I had no experience in JavaScript, all my coding was done in C#.NET, Delphi, Java and before reading this book first I started with JavaScript, the Good Parts book and failed...then moved to Secrets of JavaScript Ninja book and again failed, they were not for beginners...Then I came to this one and awesome book. It is from beginner to Professional all in one. Don't worry about the size of the book if you are a developer you can read it much faster because you don't really need all of it if it is teaching you what is a variable and fast forward to the parts you don't know...
If you are new to JavaScript first read this book before reading the other two books I mentioned above.

16 people found this helpful

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CH3CH2OH

Exactly what I hoped for

Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2014

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If you have familiarity with another language and want to learn javascript then this is a great book. It does not have pages explaining the difference between an integer and a string, just a concise and thorough explanation on how the syntax and how javascript interprets and uses them. The same with functions and everything else.

The format is mostly an explanation, followed by a complete example or examples and then it moves on to the next thing. (As opposed to some books that include many examples and review that all cover the same thing). It might be tough for a total beginner to follow, but if you already understand the basic concepts of programming I believe you will find this book very helpful without being too slow, condescending or incomplete.

6 people found this helpful

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Wayne Cannon

Excellent, Thorough, and Detailed Coverage. A great deskside reference. Not a tutorial for initially learning JavaScript.

Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2016

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This is one of those books that you keep withing arm's length and to which you frequently refer when designing software. It is not a tutorial book for learning JavaScript simply because it has too much detail. That detail is the reason this is such a useful reference book -- it contains loads of detailed information on every topics, including implementation issues, behavioral nuances, better ways to use features, alternatives, etc. After over 40 years of active professional software development and multi-year fluency in at least eight languages, I've found a reference book like this for each language. It looks like this will be my "go to" reference for JavaScript.

One review complained that there was not coverage of DOM, but there are three chapters (122 pages) dedicated to DOM. Another complained about no inclusion of object-oriented programming in JavaScript, but there is a 44-page chapter solely on Object-Oriented Programming, plus additional o-o material scattered throughout the book. There was a complaint about the incompleteness of the index. Admittedly, I don't yet have months of referencing material in this book, but I have yet to find a topic that wasn't well-covered in its index.

I highly recommend Kevin Stokes' November 3, 2012 five-star review -- "Coming from a real language? This book is your best bet.".

7 people found this helpful

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Matt Marshall

Outstanding book for advanced and intermediate JavaScript developers alike!

Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2012

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This book is NOT for most beginners, but maybe for beginners with other coding experience or with a natural knack for logic, scripting, and coding type exercises. Otherwise, advanced coders of most any language, or intermediate to advanced JavaScript developers will find this book very useful.

I am a self taught JavaScript coder, with about seven years of experience. Before studying this book, I was already writing some relatively complicated code, including functions, constructors, methods on constructors, jQuery add-ons, and more. This book took my existing JavaScript knowledgebase and cleared it up, fixed some existing misconceptions I had regarding JavaScript, taught me industry standard practices/naming conventions/coding practices/etc. that I had not already picked up on, and then it took my skills to the next level by covering topics I had a loose understanding of at best.

After going through this book in its entirety (twice for good measure :) ...), I can truly say that I am a more efficient, cleaner, and certainly more sophisticated JavaScript developer. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking to learn the latest ECMA 5.x has to offer (I previously coded to ECMA-262 version 3 based JavaScript only), those looking to learn advanced JavaScript coding skills, and/or those looking to refine their existing skillset to reflect the latest best industry practices used when coding in JavaScript.

14 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

John Neale

An excellent book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 17, 2014

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I have only recently purchased this book, but right from the beginning it explains really well the different aspects of Javascript. As a PHP developer I wanted to know more about Javascript and so far this book is perfect, far better than other books that I have read.

It is ideal for someone with experience in programming including Javascript, as it does go into more advanced Technics later in the book, but also great for someone to gain a better understanding of Javascript.

This is not a book for someone who has no prior knowledge of Javascript or other programming languages, especially if you have only a basic knowledge in CSS and HTML

I highly recommend this book.

7 people found this helpful

Mr. Simon Parker

Jam packed with information, very comprehensive.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 24, 2013

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This book contains more information than you could shake a stick at !

It is written based on actual experience working with Javascript in the real world . The information is presented in what I would call a 'Transfer of Information ' style, kind of like a brain dump rather than any thing else. The example code is kept short and what's more each and every snippet is explained thoroughly in detail.

I've read the 'Definitive Guide' which is touted as being the JavaScript Developers 'Bible' but I found 'Pro JavaScript' to be just as comprehensive and useful. It's actually better since it describes things more thoroughly and explains /why/ you need to know things. It goes far beyond the actual Syntax and describes how the language is used in real life, eg. Inheritance and OOP.

In essence this book provides much more of a tutorial than a reference , which is where its real value lies. It covers the topics in exquisite detail and the author has been meticulous even to the point of obsessive in his coverage. Whilst reading it, you will feel like you are in the presence of a JavaScript guru with a genuine intent to teach what he knows

There is also a lot of fascinating information about browsers 'quirks', how browsers and the WWW evolved, and things you need to be aware of in general.
I don't think I found one typo in the whole book.. that's quite unusual !

So in summary this is a very good value, well rounded JavaScript book that I would recomend to any one who is commited to getting up to speed Developing the Web.

4 people found this helpful

Athanasios Kontis

A well-written companion to JavaScript

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 1, 2012

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This is a thorough and helpful guide to JavaScript language. Although its target audience is mainly web developers, all people with a basic understanding of programming may benefit from it since JavaScript is such a forgiving and loose-typed language.

Organizing a vast arsenal of objects, methods, properties and differences in major browsers' implementation (e.g. IE, FF) is not the easiest task to tackle. However, in my humble opinion, the author makes a sincere and successful effort. To that end there are many helpful tables and figures which either consolidate the relevant pieces of information or provide a graphical analysis of a complex subject, like for example the 'Prototype Pattern'. Also, common pitfalls and helpful hints are provided in abundance and pointed out in conspicuous bordered frames throughout the book.

The most helpful element though, are the succinct and to-the-point examples of code that follow each and every discreet section on a specific subject. Wherever there are possible ambiguities or peculiarities of the language, the author provides more than one example to utterly dissolve them. In most cases one can follow only the given snippets and understand completely the subject at hand, since they are almost self-explanatory.

Finally, this book provides an analytical table of contents at the beginning and a powerful index at the end, which allows for granular keyword-based searches. Finding what you want is almost as easy as hitting the Ctrl-F button to open a typical search field!

4 people found this helpful

Mark

Not good for self-study

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 16, 2017

Verified Purchase

I like to sit down at a computer with a cup of coffee and learn by example. This book doesn't enable you to do that. Sure, it's crammed pack full of detailed information, but it is all abstract and theoretical. However, as a go to reference, it is superb - Wrox put time and effort in compiling fully searchable texts - the same cannot be said for Apress!

T. Mein

Very detailed

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 1, 2013

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I am approx. half way through this book and there are times when he delves a little too deep (for my level of programming skills) but overall an excellent book where things are explained very well. I have not tested all of the code strings in the book so could not say whether they all work correctly, I prefer to experiment with code that suits my current project.
Would recommend this book to people that have basic programming skills that wish to improve themselves, not sure about people that are new to programming.

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