Activate Your Web Pages
ISBN: 0596101996
Pages: 1000
Publisher: O’Reilly
Topic: Javascript
Rating: 
– (4 out of 5)
I use Javascript now and again when coding web pages, mainly for validation reasons before submitting a form, for this I occasionally look in my Javascript Pocket Reference from O’Reilly which helps me out when I forget certain aspects of the Javascript language but ‘Javascript The Definitive Guide’ is a very large book which should provide you with everything you need to know about Javascript.
‘Javascript The Definitive Guide’ is a massive book containing around 1,000 pages; this is the 5th edition of the book which now contains Ajax and DOM scripting.
‘Javascript The Definitive Guide’ is split into two main sections; the second part of the book is a javascript code reference section which explains the classes, methods and properties defined by the Javascript language.
The first several chapters of ‘Javascript The Definitive Guide’ will teach you how to program javascript from the beginning and take you through each section of the language including loops, string functions, conditional expressions such as if then else etc. The book also takes you through pattern matching using javascript, and lots of other useful code which you can actually use in your own web pages.
There are some great examples that you can use in your web pages such as how to create CSS tool tips and how to drag elements on screen using DOM. There are also useful sections on validating forms and storing cookies etc. There is even a section on how to display XML data using SOAP with Javascript.
The book also contains javascript examples using AJAX and how to create charts using javascript.
‘Javascript The Definitive Guide’ contains a lot of code examples, a lot of them are several pages long and seem too long to try and type in and then find there are errors, which I’m not saying there are, but the longer the code the more chance there may be errors.
I am not a lover of too much Javascript on public web pages as I don’t like the idea of Search Engines not being able to read Javascript in pages as it’s a client side language, but Javascript does have its place and can be very useful in certain situations.
‘Javascript The Definitive Guide’ is a good book and one that you may find using some code from, as well as using as a Javascript reference as it contains all the Javascript knowledge you may need.