Once listed in the "nice to have" sections of job postings, these days the knowledge of JavaScript is a deciding factor when it comes to hiring web developers. And rightly so. Where in the past we used to have the occasional few lines of JavaScript embedded in a web page, now we have advanced libraries and extensible architectures, powering the "fat-client", AJAX-type rich internet applications.

JavaScript is the language of the browser, but it's also heavily employed in many other environments: server-side programming, desktop applications, application extensions and widgets. It's a pretty good deal: you learn one language and then code all kinds of different applications. While this book has one chapter specifically dedicated to the web browser environment including DOM, events, and AJAX tutorials, the rest is applicable to all the other environments too.

This book treats JavaScript as a serious object-oriented language, showing you how to build robust, maintainable, and powerful libraries and applications. Along the way, we cover many of the recent innovations such as AJAX, JSON, and interesting design and coding patterns. After reading this book, you'll be prepared to ace your JavaScript job interview and even impress with some bits that the interviewer maybe didn't know. You should read this book if you want to be able to take your JavaScript skills to a new level of sophistication.

What you will learn from this book?

* Learn to think in JavaScript, the language of the web browser
* The basics of object-oriented programming, and how they apply to JavaScript
* Set up and use your training environment (Firebug)
* Master data types, operators, and flow control statements
* Understand functions: usage patterns, variable scope, and built-in functions
* Closures demystified
* Create and use objects
* Understand and use prototypes
* Reuse code with common patterns for inheritance
* Understand and work with the BOM (Browser Object Model)
* The DOM (Document Object Model) - accessing, modifying, adding, and deleting nodes
* Build responsive web pages with AJAX
* JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)
* Listen and respond to browser events
* Apply design patterns to solve common problems
* Adopt coding patterns that unleash the unique power of the language
* Make your programs cleaner, faster, and compatible with other programs and libraries
* Achieve missing object-oriented features in JavaScript such as private properties and methods

Who is this book written for?

The book requires no prior knowledge of JavaScript and works from the ground up to give you a thorough grounding in this powerful language. If you do already know some JavaScript, you will find plenty of eye-openers as you discover just what the language can do.

This book takes a do-it-yourself approach when it comes to writing code, because the best way to really learn a programming language is by writing code. You are encouraged to type code into Firebug's console, see how it works and then tweak it and play around with it. There are practice questions at the end of each chapter to help review what you have learned.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 14 Ratings

Clearing the fog - 2009-11-18
Reviewer Rating:
Coming from a background dominated by statically typed languages, this book has really helped solve some of the mysteries of JavaScript. The hands-on, tutorial style is very effective. The examples are both simple and insightful. My only complaint is the book's index is inadequate.

Best Javascript Book to Bring You Up to Speed - 2009-11-01
Reviewer Rating:
This book is small, yet gets you up to speed on where you need to be to create nice object-oriented code in Javascript. I've got a few books on Javascript and this one does the best job at teaching Javascript in-depth.

One of the most interesting book I've been reading recently. - 2009-10-31
Reviewer Rating:
Objective with good examples and explaining lots of concepts every Javascript programmers should know. Helped me a lot in designing my ExtJS web development too. I really recommend this book.

A must read for aspiring Javascript programmers - 2009-10-12
Reviewer Rating:
I really enjoyed this book. It is concise and pithy. Although I've been writing/hacking JavaScript for a while now, I still learned a lot from reading this. Missing are the usual long code examples copied from the authors pet projects that only serves to build bulk divert one's attention.

I read and enjoyed every word in this book, and I will be rereading some of it.

Excellent Book - 2009-08-15
Reviewer Rating:
Great choice for developers learning oop concepts on the client. Its well written and contains just what is needed to kick-off client side coding. I'd recommend it for new to intermediate js developers. However, intermediate developers have probably written similar code, or at least read it elsewhere. Every shop should own a copy!

Browse Similar Topics

Top Level Categories:
Internet/Online
Programming

Sub-Categories:
Internet/Online > JavaScript
Internet/Online > Scripting
Programming > JavaScript