JavaScript Programmer's Reference Programmer to programmer: Amazon.co.uk: Cliff Wootton: Books

Book Description

Publication Date: 1 Feb 2001 | Series: Programmer to programmer

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 viewable 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.

#outer_postBodyPS { display: none; } #psGradient { display: none; } #psPlaceHolder { display: none; } #psExpand { display: none; } 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 viewable 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.

Product details

Mass Market Paperback: 1000 pages
Publisher: WROX Press Ltd; illustrated edition edition (1 Feb 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1861004591
ISBN-13: 978-1861004598
Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 15.6 x 5.8 cm

Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,363,996 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Amazon Review

JavaScript Programmer's Reference documents the standard versions of JavaScript, JScript, and ECMAScript and also catalogues the extensions which 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 the means by which 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 (although reading the object descriptions can be very illuminating). Cliff Wootton has chosen to organise his work alphabetically, like a giant encyclopaedia of objects, reserved words, operators, filters, and other aspects of JavaScript and the DOM standards. As an appendix he includes a cross-reference which associates individual properties, methods, and event handlers with the objects to which they belong. Once you've located the entry you want, you'll have easy access (in the case of an object) 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 what versions of which browsers support the language feature you wish to use. There are also references to standards documents and occasional illustrations of how to use the language element in working code. Though rare the illustrations are generally effective in clarifying the significance of language elements and the relationships among objects.

Cool features include 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. Also note that operators and other non-character entries don't appear at the 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 though, this is a fine JavaScript reference made excellent by its companion CD-ROM, which includes the entire body of printed reference material (plus some extra) in searchable form. --David Wall

From the Publisher

This book is aimed at programmers who know and use JavaScript in their day-to-day work, and who need a reference guide to the details of the JavaScript language.

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent reference for those with existing knowledge 4 May 2001

By A Customer

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Excellent reference source if you have a reasonably good knowledge of Javascript already but probably not the book you want if you are a novice to the subject.

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Amazon.com: 2.3 out of 5 stars 18 reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Reference! 23 Mar 2001

By "dtsdar" - Published on Amazon.com

Format:Mass Market Paperback

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!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

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

By Luke - Published on Amazon.com

Format:Mass Market Paperback

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.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Very much useless 20 May 2003

By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com

Format:Mass Market Paperback

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.

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