Professional JavaScript for Web Developers (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) [Paperback]

 

 

Create your own review

For the most part this is an excellent book, the simplicity and clarity of the examples given is mostly excellent, and the coverage feels complete. This book is definitely for experienced JavaScript programmers, and probably other programmers from a similar syntactical based language that will be able to grasp the concepts quickly. Although it does begin with the basics, more as an overview/reminder, it doesn't continue along those lines as you move through the book, for example when covering regular expressions it doesn't tell you why regular expression literals begin and end with a forward slash as you should already know that, equally it doesn't waste time explaining the parts that make up a regular expression, such as repetition characters, position characters etc, as you should already know that too, instead it heads straight into advanced stuff, and this is the case on most topics. The terminology used throughout is definitely aimed at experienced programmers that will instantly understand the commentary; beginners will be baffled as programming terms aren't explained, unless it is specific to JavaScript.

Constructor, prototype, inheritance and many other patterns are discussed with great clarity. Equally the DOM and BOM are very well covered with the many differences amongst the browsers explained with cross browser solutions provided. Events are also given excellent coverage. The theory behind each aspect of JavaScript is often provided, I've always felt such theory is absolutely necessary in order to really get to grips with a language, and this sort of stuff is lacking in many other books, but not here thankfully. You'll walk away not only knowing how to do something and why you should do it that way, but also how it works under the hood.

There are issues (as opposed to downsides), one is that some aspects of the book, especially early on, feel more like you're reading a reference book rather than a tutorial and it does make reading those sections a little difficult from a concentration/interest standpoint due to the dry nature of reference type material. Having said that though it's obvious that completeness was the aim of this book as there is just so much stuff in here, much of it you'll likely never encounter in your working day, although it does leave one feeling somewhat overwhelmed at times. Another potential issue, to those that have no OO programming experience, is that comparisons with JavaScript and OO type features of other languages are made throughout, and again the terminology is applied without explanations, so if you have no OO experience or knowledge you may find parts of the book difficult to understand, clearly the author was trying to anticipate the questions of experienced OO programmers moving over to JavaScript. I call these issues rather than downsides as this is a professional book, in the right target market these issues shouldn't really be a problem.

The area which needs improvement is real-world application of advanced concepts. It's one thing understanding patterns and advanced techniques but knowing when to apply them in a meaningful context is frequently, but not always, lacking. In addition the author will teach a particular concept and then wrap it up in his own utility classes and then throughout the book he'll simply use his utility classes when he needs that particular feature, now this is no doubt the way to do things but whilst I'm learning I would prefer he'd reuse the actual features directly in order to help cement concepts in my mind that I'd previously covered as I go through the book, unfortunately the use of utility classes hides away the concepts you've previously learnt so you have to go back and review. In my view it would have been better if he left his utility classes to the best practices chapter towards the end of the book. On the plus side the author does support the book on the p2p forums and he was extremely helpful and quick to respond when I had questions.

One final note about this book is that it is slightly dated now, for example ECMAScript 4 is referred to in this book as the next standard but this has actually been abandoned for ECMAScript 5, and under EC5 some features have been deprecated in strict mode, such as arguments.callee amongst others, but don't let that put you off as EC5 lacks browser support. For me this book really hits the mark, especially with advanced JavaScript techniques, although I'm going to have to get in lots of practice before I forget it all!

As a sometime web developer I bought the first edition of this book some years ago and even at the time it helped me realise how pitiful my understanding of JavaScript was. I recently purchased the 2nd edition on Kindle and it remains utterly invaluable.

It's written in quite an academic style without being dry, patronising, or smug. The underlying message of the book is that JavaScript is a 'proper' programming language with as well-established a set of patterns and tools as any other. Several chapters are given over to explaining core concepts such as variable scope, function declarations, and (very importantly) object-oriented programming in JavaScript. It is worth purchasing just for the best practice approach that it advocates (with clear examples). I particularly like the way that the author details the steps leading up a particular best practice (done brilliantly in the chapters on objects and inheritance). It is important to stress that this is not some abstract waffle, it is real-world stuff that you can use in professional web development projects.

Coverage of the BOM, DOM, and related eventing, is thorough, including the quirks of different browsers. Admittedly a lot of this is subsumed by toolsets such as jQuery, but it is very useful to understand what JavaScript can actually do in the browser. Also, although scant coverage is given to the full power of Ajax, this doesn't undermine the value of the book (and there is a chapter on the XMLHttpRequest which gives more than enough information to get started). There are also excellent chapters on maintainability, performancec, best practices, and third-party frameworks.

I really can't recommend this book enough. Given the amount of hacked and inline code I regularly see, this needs to be read by more developers.

I was looking for a book explaining the paradigms of JavaScript and I certainly found them. The clarity of the book is exceptional; knowing other programming languages like C, C++, Java and Pascal makes the reading even more enjoyable. At last someone who thinks the readers will be able to comprehend a language's fundamentals and who does not restrict his reader to yet-another cookbook.
What I was not looking for was up to date comprehensive information of what browsers support what and the clearest explanation I came up with about the different versions of Javascript components (ie EcmaScript, DOM & BOM). Thas was a real good surprise and have saved me weeks of effort to try to rebuild these facts on my own.
A true reference book. Will look forward to buy the next edition.

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 6 customer reviews on Amazon.co.uk

 

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book but for experienced JavaScript developers
I just wanted to point out that this book became useful for me only after I went through more basic JavaScript. Read more

Published 4 months ago by Marcin Dancewicz

5.0 out of 5 stars If your are looking to understand the inner workings of; or extend an existing JavaScript library this is an ideal resource
If you'd like to start to get to grips with the more advanced features of JavaScript, so you understanding how existing Ajax libraries such as JQuery have been written, this book... Read more

Published 15 months ago by Mr. Jeremy Flowers

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally JavaScript as a programming language
Learning JavaScript never attracted me but since it's back to it's golden days with the demand on more responsive client side specially for me in (Investment Banking Environment),... Read more

Published on 23 Mar 2009 by A. ALI

Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

› See all 6 customer reviews on Amazon.co.uk

Search Listmania!