3 comments about The Web Wizard's Guide to JavaScript (Addison-Wesley Web Wizard Series).

1. This book does the job. It teaches concepts not just code. You can get lots of code examples for free on the internet. The only reason to buy a book is to learn how things work not just how to make things happen. One nice feature of the book is that it doesn't delve into every possible method or property. instead the author selected the most practical aspects of the language to teach. It is not the last book on JavaScript you will ever need but it makes a good first book on the topic.



2. I love the web wizard's series, and had high hopes for using this book in an intro-level course. But the programming concepts come too fast for someone who hasn't done any programming. Chapter 1 throws out a zillion concepts without giving enough concrete examples of how they are used, so they will remain abstract to novices.

   An example: comparison operators are introduced on page 10, when one has no conceivable use for them. And then on page 20, we get to loops, and on page 21, conditional statements. You just can't pick up javascript this way unless you already know how to program.

   This is probably a fine book for folks who already know how to program, but want to pick up javascript. But OTOH, if you already know how to program, aren't you ready for the O'Reilly Javascript books?

   I'm not sure what this book's niche is. I thought the web wizard's series was for novices.




3. Estrella provides a quick introduction to JavaScript. Enough details to understand the basic coding ideas. The illustrations and examples are also well chosen to reinforce this learning.
   
   He demonstrates that JavaScript can greatly enhance the interactivity of your web pages. It complements the static features of HTML, by letting you write dynamic pages, that have behaviour as well as a single visual representation.
   
   The book does not try to give a comprehensive overview of the language. But it should encourage you to seek out more information.

3 comments about HTML and JavaScript BASICS, Third Edition.

1. Web pages are written in HTML, and Barksdale teaches this for an absolute novice. Hopefully, you should find it easy to follow. HTML's rapid success was due in no small part to this ease of use. It is also not a procedural language, though sometimes it is mistakenly called that. What Barksdale shows about HTML is that it is a declarative language. That is, you say that certain text should be written in a given colour or font style or size, and at a certain relative location on the page. You tell the browser what you want shown, and it has to implement that.
   
   But Barksdale goes beyond HTML. As a display language, it is very limited. Whereas he shows how you can use JavaScript as a client side [ie. running on the browser] language, to perform actual programming tasks. JavaScript is a good functional complement to HTML, as you might appreciate.



2. The books code uses depreciated HTML standards such as the font and center tags. The code is not well documented either. The JavaScript examples also lack good code structure. Some of the reference links in the book are dead. Aside from the many negative things about the book it has some good tips and the book layout is not to bad. The binding in the book is also decent. Each page is lamented so you will have extended life from it even if you spill stuff on it. Overall I would not recommend this book to a beginner because it will encourage them to use depreciated methods and coding.



3. My son needed this book for school and we received in time for school. Great service!

5 comments about JavaScript Application Cookbook.

1. After working through the first chapter (site search engine) I felt that this was a book work reading. It isn't a beginner's book, but anyone with intermediate javascript skills and an interest in using client-side processing will pick up a good amount of useful techniques and some needed perspective on how client-side scripting can be a powerful asset.

   The code could be better (as could anyone's). There is a strong focus on using local variables instead of global and the naming conventions make following the logic from one function to the next a little difficult. This, however, does not diminish the value of the concepts presented.

   To use the book, you "MUST" download the files. Not only are they a lot easier to read, you can comment them extensively as you go and pick up logic bits.

   An inportant suggestion is to not blow through the example application too quickly. If you take the time to take them apart, modify them and reassemble, you will pick up much more than just running them reading the code and moving on.

   I wish there were more books that presented the business functionality of javascript and how it can be used to handle many of the things that are being passed to server-side processing.

   I bought it, used it and would buy it again...




2. The text is focused on providing ready built constructs that can be applied to any website. In summary this book contains 11 application constructs. 3 are possibly applicable in todays world, albeit their relevancy is questioned, the other 9 topics such as text ciphers in JavaScript and Shopping Carts in JavaScript, etc. are completely unacceptable in today's world. Adding text cipher or Shopping cart logic in the browser completely exposes that logic to the hacking public leaving your site completely vulnerable to attack. Even in 1999, when this book was written, this would have been a ridiculous way of implementing these things. I must say I gathered no useful information from this text. And as for the author, anyone who had their site implemented by this person should hire a professional to correct the security holes he has most likely left behind.



3. This book fills a very nice gap in the world of JavaScript books. Most of the books either are basic "how to" learning guides or exhaustive reference manuals. Both of those types of books are necessary for a good developer, but there comes a time when you want to cross over from the theoretical to the practical. As in, "how would I do a function like this in JavaScript?"

   The "cookbook" approach is designed to take a common web site feature, like a search engine, and code a common JavaScript routine that would do that. You can then take the code in the book and use it with very little modification. In most cases, you would learn from the code as you are implementing it, and from there you can enhance the function to better suit your particular needs. You get the best of both worlds... You are quickly able to implement a function you are getting paid to build, and you are learning at the same time.

   I liked the piece on context-sensitive help files. Nothing is really complex or visually impressive. But it's core functionality that you can implement quickly, it's useful for the end user, and you can build on that technique both in your current and future applications.

   For Notes/Domino developers, you'll find a lot you can use here. Being that Domino functionality often translates to the web, you may find that a pure JavaScript implementation of a feature may not be the fastest or easiest way to build something for your application. You'll need to examine the functionality you need for your application and determine the best way to do it. But even if you choose to use Domino to accomplish some task, seeing the way to do it in JavaScript can help you expand your horizons and consider different approaches.

   Conclusion
   I would recommend this book as a practical supplement to a good "how to" and a good reference book. If you're just starting to learn JavaScript, you may want to leave this one alone for awhile.




4. As a javascript, I started using this book after studying Goodman's "The Javascript Bible", hoping to study some real-life applications. The code is nicely written and fully commented. But most of the examples do not work on today's browsers (IE6 and Firefox 1.0 when this review was written), so in this respect, the book is useless.



5. You do not want this book. Both the examples chosen and the style of programming used are ... nothing you want to emulate.
   
   In partial defense of the author, most (practically all) Javascript books are pretty awful, and at the time this book was written, there were few or no better examples.
   
   I was looking as an exercise to offer well-written rewrites of older poorly written examples. After scanning through my copy, realized that even the examples were not worth redeeming.
   
   The best Javascript book I have found so far is:
   JavaScript: The Definitive Guide
   (even in this book the examples are not often less than excellent.)

3 comments about Mastering the Internet, XHTML and JavaScript (2nd Edition).

1. Good for Basics, Textbook like approach.Easy to follow



2. Nice cut and paste job of basic information freely available out on the web. Don't waste your money..



3. I read this book for a class, and was disappointed. The writing could have been a lot clearer, and there were numerous typos which is very problematic when you are trying to read/learn code)

5 comments about Internet Programming with VBScript and JavaScript (Web Warrior Series).

1. Very bad examples in this book. Spelling errors, coding errors, you will need to buy other books to figure out what she is trying to teach. She should have read her book before printing it. This book should never have been printed in the first place. Not a good book at all. She provided only part of codes and you have to figure it out yourself. Why do we need her botch attempt at being an author or teacher. SAVE YOUR MONEY on this one.



2. Very good educational book for learners. My only complain it does not include sample code CD-ROM; it would most likely catch all the mispelling. But for teaching material its an excellent book to have.



3. This book was a complete disaster in comparison to other books I've used from Thomsons Course Technology. The examples are extremely thin and you will have to use the internet as a resource because much of the tags and code the book leaves out and you have to fend for yourself. I had to buy this book for a class I am taking. Most of it is totally outdated and I can't believe my school is still using it for the Internet Programming class. What a waste of my money.



4. This is a terrible book to try to learn internet programming. It is loaded with typos and code errors.



5. In depth programming experience in Javascript, VBScript, ASP, and Access databases (and possibly SQL Server). I highly recommend this book. It is slightly out of date, but 99% of the newer adaptations of the software (i.e. ASP.NET) were found on Microsoft's web site. Many web sites are still using these versions of the software, which is why the book is so valuable. Thank you Kathleen Kalata.

5 comments about Java 2 and JavaScript for C and C++ (Programmers, Revised Edition).

1. The index is throughly useless, but otherwise the book is great. I gave it five stars because, for once, the examples really helped. He gives you a practical example of just about everything you could expect from a book of this size. Its easy to read - plus, its organized so you can skip sections you're not interested in and then later go back. I'd really like to see more books like this out there.



2. Read what I wrote about the previous, 1.2 edition here on Amazon. The book has not been changed much - it just has a new cover.

   What is missing from my review (the 1000-word limit has cut out the last 3000 words) is that the book is definitely NOT suited for a beginner. Just an example> check out the I/O and the AWT chapters. No beginner will understand them - even books like Lemay's Teach Yourself Java 2 in 21 Days are much more comprehensible.

   You can buy this book if you already know the language and are eager to discover the differences between C++ and Java (too bad only the first 4 chapters emphasize them, the other chapters spend NO words on C++ at all), you can give it a try. Or just get the previous (and, therefore, cheaper) edition, as it's alsmost the same as this one...




3. Although slightly thought provoking in its tactics, the main theses were misconstrued. There were many instances of erroneous teaching methods which led to unfavorable results. This book does have its bright sides, mainly pertaining to general layout of the book. The relation of Javascript to C++ makes the book very difficult to comprehend. Overall, as a Javascript programmer, I would not recommend this book to anyone.



4. I wanted a book that for an experienced C++ programmer that would not waste time teaching me what a class is, etc. It did that, but unfortunately covers waaaay to much ground to be really practical to learn how to actually write code without additional reference material.

   There are long coding examples presented with little explanation, which the reader is expected to spend hours deciphering and then say "voila, that's how it works."

   Major concepts lacking. For e.g, nowhere could I find an explanation of when you have to use "throws" in a declaration.

   The index is a joke. Try to look up Vector, implements, throws, Set...not there!




5. In the meantime, I've scrutinized the book more thoroughly. I've written the 1st review after comparing moslty the I/O and AWT chapters, the two being the worst of most Java books (and these two chapters are still as worse as they were in the 1998, Java 1.2 edition). As these chapters were similar to the previous edition, I thought the entire book is just a rehash too. However, other chapters are really updated, which I will also write about in the next review to be posted soon.

   Werner Zsolt.

No comments about JavaScript and Ajax for the Web: Visual QuickStart Guide (7th Edition) (Visual QuickStart Guide).

4 comments about ZK: Ajax without the Javascript Framework.

1. I'm a fan of Java-based frameworks (such as Echo 2) and was looking forward to this book on ZK as a nice introduction to the framework.
   
   The book is slim but delivers on exactly the kind of content I was hoping for. It starts with a great overview, and then has a few real world examples.
   
   I would have loved to see more information on working in pure Java (richlets), but otherwise found the content to be great for the size.
   
   The only oddity is that my copy appears to have been printed off a screen-resolution PDF - all of the text, images, etc. look worse than if I ran it off on my home laser printer. I'm going to chalk this up to an oddity of how this particular edition was run off, but I would hope that this is a rare QC issue that would be quickly fixed.



2. It's a very begining book for ZK, with examples and easy to read for non english people like me. A good introduction to this amazing project.



3. I bought this book in hopes it would be full and complete reference. I was mistaken. As far as OpenSouce projects go ZK has a great amount of information available on their website and it was a great resource as I got started using ZK. However, I quickly ran into areas where things were not documented fully or were explained from an angle that I was not coming from.
   
   I turned to this book in hopes that it would be more complete than the website documentation. I found this not to be the case. There are some good exaples in the book, but it is already far too outdated. If you need a good starting text it is OK, but until a new book is released (no info here, just a wish) I would suggest sticking with the web resources.



4. The ZK framework is very much a moving target, it s in a constant development. There is a lot of documentation to be found on the internet, which renders the book somewhat less useful. The examples are sometimes not correct and generate confusion.
   ZK is a framework that needs other frameworks and products to construct working applications. I expected the book to provide some best practices and guidance on how to do things the easy way, but I was disappointed in that.

5 comments about JavaScript Programming for the Absolute Beginner (For the Absolute Beginner (Series).).

1. I just finished taking Andy Harris' Client-Side Web Programming class at IUPUI that follows this book. Written in English, not computerese, this practical, how-to guide equips you with tools that get you in the saddle and off and running as a javascript programmer. Armed with just this information, you can create highly versatile and functional web programs of which you can be proud. The applications for these concepts are limitless. Go Andy!



2. This books approach, teaching JS by programming games is effective, but the way the programs are layed out is confusing. In one chapter, the program is presented in parts, but it is VERY confusing how they go together, and parts of the program are left out entirely, which makes the program not work at all (Petals around the Rose, ch.6). An editor should be used who can correct programs, as well as correctling spelling.



3. I have read this book for a long time (may be 2 years a go) but I did not complete it until now. The book is very boring, Because I'm never learn javascript, that is why it is the reason that i choose this book. But all of the book example is explain with the game project. I really hate it. What I expect to learn is the benefit of javascript scripting language that I could use in the business website. I expect to have a real example for business web site development using javascript scripting language, but this book is totally nothing. If you want to learn javascript for using in business, don't buy this book.



4. When I got this book, it was the second book I got to learn Javascript with. The other book had poor teaching methods, leaving a lot of blanks for the reader to fill in.
   
   This book didn't seem to have that problem at first. It was very good at teaching concepts and syntax at the same time. However, as I got into later chapters, I noticed that the code it had me type, though identical to what was in the book, did not produce the specified results, or even generated errors.
   
   I skipped ahead to some of the later examples. Fortunately, the CD that comes with the book has all the examples pre-typed out, as well as files that go along with the lessons (before and after files, if you will). Many of the files in the latest chapters didn't function at all.
   
   About this time I checked the printing date (2002), and realized I was probably dealing with coding systems that had been updated, as virtually all web-related coding systems I've studied (HTML/XHTML, CSS, PHP) all seem to have updates and variations every year or so.
   
   All in all, the author and publisher did a good job of teaching, and I'd recommend their work....but, unless I've made a major mistake, I wouldn't recommend this one...unless it gets revised to keep up with the current technology.



5. I'm new to java and some web design. This book was pretty good, if your building a game for online. But not so good in reference to online web design. I did like it however just a pain in the rear trying to figure out were the code goes in my xhtml/css. But it also could just be me being a little behind the ball.

2 comments about Adobe AIR for JavaScript Developers Pocket Guide.

1. §
   Adobe is advancing sure and certain in their goal to create a solid (and hopefully popular) rich Internet application framework. It is clear that significant progress is being made. Adobe wisely chose the WebKit HTML renderer and promised better JavaScript integration. Both aspects are key to acceptance by a broad layer of Web developers.
   
   I think there are some special points of interest in this little reference:
   
   Chapter 3 contains a good explanation of the generic approach to the script sandbox.
   
   Chapter 4 is a mini cookbook of technical solutions presented in a handy "problem / solution / discussion" format.
   
   Surprisingly, the index is also pretty good -- and needed. This "little" reference is 200 pages!
   §



2. If you're already familiar with HTML and JavaScript and would want to develop desktop applications using Adobe AIR then this is the right book for YOU.
   
   In a nutshell, there are several approaches to developing AIR applications:
   1. Using HTML and JavaScript
   2. Using Flex
   3. Using Flash
   
   Obviously, this book focuses mainly on the first item.
   
   I'm coming from Java Web Development background and I have just started with Flex. I also got interested in Adobe AIR after seeing some examples on the Internet. But since I'm already developing Flex applications for the web, I prefer developing AIR applications using Flex also (so it will be easier to port the application from web to desktop and vice versa).
   
   Even so, I find the book very informative. Most especially the cookbook section where it shows you how to connect to the embedded database, read/write files and so on.
   
   Given that this book is a Pocket Guide, I was quickly up to speed with the capabilities of Adobe AIR in a couple of hours.