Since the earliest days of Internet scripting, Web developers have considered
JavaScript: The Definitive Guide an essential resource. David Flanagan's approach, which combines tutorials and examples with easy-to-use syntax guides and object references, suits the typical programmer's requirements nicely. The brand-new fourth edition of Flanagan's `Rhino Book` includes coverage of JavaScript 1.5, JScript 5.5, ECMAScript 3, and the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 standard from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Interestingly, the author has shifted away from specifying--as he did in earlier editions--what browsers support each bit of the language. Rather than say Netscape 3.0 supports the Image object while Internet Explorer 3.0 does not, he specifies that JavaScript 1.1 and JScript 3.0 support Image. More usefully, he specifies the contents of independent standards like ECMAScript, which encourages scripters to write applications for these standards and browser vendors to support them. As Flanagan says, JavaScript and its related subjects are very complex in their pure forms. It's impossible to keep track of the differences among half a dozen vendors' generally similar implementations. Nonetheless, a lot of examples make reference to specific browsers' capabilities.
Though he does not cover server-side APIs, Flanagan has chosen to separate coverage of core JavaScript (all the keywords, general syntax, and utility objects like Array) from coverage of client-side JavaScript (which includes objects, like History and Event, that have to do with Web browsers and users' interactions with them. This approach makes this book useful to people using JavaScript for applications other than Web pages. By the way, the other classic JavaScript text--Danny Goodman's JavaScript Bible--isn't as current as this book, but it's still a fantastic (and perhaps somewhat more novice-friendly) guide to the JavaScript language and its capabilities. --David Wall
Topics covered: The JavaScript language (version 1.0 through version 1.5) and its relatives, JScript and ECMAScript, as well as the W3C DOM standards they're often used to manipulate. Tutorial sections show how to program in JavaScript, while reference sections summarize syntax and options while providing copious code examples.
User review
Great Book!
i recommend it to anybody that wants to learn JavaScript from the basics and on ,,.
User review
Java Script
Because I purchased this book as a gift I cannot review it personally. However the person who received it was very happy with the book.
User review
Wrong book
I got the wrong edition. I searched for fifth edition and picked the book from `Used and New` section. It was a wrong edition there. I don't know where the problem is. It took me about two months to get my refund. Be careful when selecting books from the `Used and New` section
User review
The book is aptly named!
I have to agree with the bulk of the reviews that I've read about this book: it IS the DEFINITIVE guide to Javascript. I'm just learning Javascript, and I bought another book that was an overly gentle introduction to Javascript (since I've been programming for quite some time), and after I went through that one and another one, I finally bought this one, and I half expected that it would be a little bit hard to chew at this point in my Javascript learning curve: not so! There are very very few typos (I spotted a couple in the first 150 pages), and the author explains everything very very clearly. I could scarcely be happier with this book than I am.
(This review concerns the new 5th edition.)
User review
The best book for Javascript out there
I have had a very wrong notion and understanding of JavaScript until I read this book. This book is a must for serious JavaScript programmers.
