JavaScript: The Definitive Guide
by David Flanagan
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Book Reviews of JavaScript: The Definitive Guide
Book Review: Too much paper, not enough knowledge.
Summary: 2 Stars
For a book which calls itself "the definitive guide" I was hoping for a much longer and more lucid explanation of OOP in Javascript, prototypes and patterns of how to use them. Prototypes are a key part of Javascript but this is an OOP construct different from the class paradigm familiar to most developers. In a book of 990 pages you'd think that more then a cursory 30 pages would be warranted to explain such a key concept. Having read this section about three times now I think the author simply does not have a deep understanding of this key concept and how important it is to learning this language. The examples in this section even though they are short are far from self-explanatory since they
use the exact language magic they are trying to explain. Also there are no diagrams of any sort and they would have really helped here.
Also in a 990 page book you'd think a this is how javascript is different from major languages table (at least Java...)
Btw this book is thick and heavy! Definitely not for dropping into the briefcase for casual reading on the train.
Since this is relevant to the perspective on a tech book: I have a CS education and 20 years dev experience.
Book Review: What more could you want?
Summary: 5 Stars
I ordinarily like to say that JavaScript is the worst programming language known to man, but I just read "Programming in Lua" and don't think I can continue in this practice. Nevertheless, it's pretty bad. From its lack of anything remotely resembling an "include" statement to its closures-over-classes OOP implementation, there is nothing pleasant about working in JavaScript, and that's why we need this book--to explain all the bizarre, counterintuitive nuances of scope resolution, interpreter variations and whatever all else the Netscape crackheads who forced this travesty on the world came up with.
Some people seem to think that any book that has the word "JavaScript" in its title should be packed full of code they can simply copy and paste until they have a bangin' new social networking startup site that's going to revolutionize the way we think about horrible photography, and those people are the ones who are disappointed with what they got. While AJAX and DOM scripting are discussed at considerable length here, this is not a book about making flashy, annoying websites.
Book Review: Excellent Book
Summary: 5 Stars
The great thing about it being a 5th edition, most of the issues, errors, oversights, and omitted content found in 1st editions are not a problem. This book is thorough, well written, and filled with examples. I also greatly appreciate how it ramps up the reader without overwhelming them. Too many of these types of books go from a useless overview of the language to moderate or advanced concepts with little explanation as to how you got there. I don't see this in this book. Personally, I purchased this just as a reference book, and it's great for that. You can look up almost anything in a few seconds, making it the kind of book you keep on your shelf for a long time. I highly recommend this book as a way to become familiar with the power of Javascript, and in learning it, you'll also gain a little insight into all of the C based languages for web programming as well. I'm bummed I ordered version 5 when version 6 is coming out in a month... but it's still a great book.Book Review: Almost Too Thorough. Not the best Choice for Beginners/Creatives
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the book all the JS rockstars out there tend to recommend to people. I don't think it's for everybody personally. It's very thorough and explains JS and its various incarnations at a high level of intricacy that I wouldn't recommend to beginners who are easily distracted (i.e. more heavily creative-brained designers). I'm fairly evenly brained myself and I occasionally found myself zombie-reading as exciting as some of the specifics are too me.
On the other hand, if you want to know just about everything there is to possibly know about JS, this is the book. And that's worth five stars to me.
A good place to get a start with JS if you've never programmed is a decent class or self-teaching the basics online. Then I recommend Jeremy Keith's DOM scripting. Then the Complete Reference. Then this bruiser when you really want get in deep.
Book Review: Hope this isn't really THE definitive review
Summary: 1 Stars
I am an experienced programmer, well versed in languages I have learned from O'Reilly books. I read this book cover to cover a couple of years ago. It certainly is thorough.
I have just spent six hours trying to hook in a simple javascript function to my php application. UGH! I swear some of the coding examples in the book are just plain wrong! I finally got the function to recognize a 'hello world' program both written in the file and in an external file. I had to go to the web for a simple tutorial to do this. I now have a five line program that just plain doesn't work! So I looked up 'debugging' in the 'DEFINITIVE' guide. It is clueless. So am I. I have never, ever had this much trouble picking up a new language from a book.
I have to give this book a rating of 1.