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JavaScript @ Web Programming
Programming Shed : Programmer Store & Resources |
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JavaScript Index - JavaScript Book :
Javascript Programmer's Reference (Programmer to Programmer)
by Cliff Wootton Mass Market Paperback: 973 pages Publisher: Wrox Press Inc. ISBN: 1861004591; 1st edition (February 15, 2001) JavaScript Programmer's Reference documents JavaScript, JScript, and ECMAScript to the degree that they're standardized, and goes on to catalog the extensions 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 how 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 (though reading the object descriptions can be very illuminating, indeed). Cliff Wootton has chosen to organize his work alphabetically, like a giant encyclopedia of objects, reserved words, operators, filters, and other aspects of JavaScript and the DOM standards. A cross-reference that associates individual properties, methods, and event handlers with the objects to which they belong appears as an appendix. Once you've located the entry of the object you want, you'll have easy access 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 which versions of which browsers support the language feature you want to use. There also are references to standards documents, and, sometimes, illustrations of how to use the language element in working code. Illustrations are rare but generally effective in clarifying the significance of language elements and the relationships among objects. A cool feature is 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. The book also has some strange ways of doing things: Operators and other non-character entries don't appear up 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, this is a fine JavaScript reference, made excellent by its companion CD-ROM that includes the entire body of printed reference material (plus some extra) in searchable form. --David Wall Topics covered: The JavaScript, JScript, and ECMAScript scripting languages, and their implementations in popular browsers as well as in standards documents. Coverage includes JavaScript through version 1.5, JScript through version 5.5, and ECMAScript through version 3. The DOM1 standard is covered fully and the DOM2 standard is covered to the extent it's implemented in Netscape Navigator 6. Effectively, this means coverage includes Netscape Navigator through version 6.0, Internet Explorer through version 5.5, and Opera through version 5. There's also some coverage of server-side JavaScript under Netscape Enterprise Server. Book Description: 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 viewlable 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. Book Info: A reference for computer programmers working with JavaScript. Features coverage of JavaScript programming concepts and definitions, Netscape Enterprise Server, and more. The CD-ROM contains the complete text and more than 2,000 other entries. System requirements not listed. About the Author: Cliff Wootton specializes in the development and integration of high performance media based Internet/Intranet systems. His clients are companies needing solutions for publishing, graphics, multimedia and Internet projects. Recent work includes architectural design and development of components for several award winning broadcast/entertainment web sites. Customer Reviews Another must-have reference, February 27, 2001 Reviewer: Nkkc from Cupertino, California Before reading this book, the book "Javascript, The Definite Guide by David Flanagan" is a must-have reference for every Javascript programmer. This book became my second "must-have" reference. The reason why this book is worth the money is that the examples inside the book are very much helpful to understand the Javascript in a deeper level. Too bad that Wrox has a traditionally lousy publishing format, and it caused reading uncomfortably. This book is no exceptional and that's why the "definite guide" is still No. 1. Wrox should not neglect this anymore. The CD-ROM is handy, May 1, 2002 Reviewer: Edwardson Tan Pleasantly surprised that this book contains a CD-ROM. What's amazing is that the disk contains not only the entire book but actually has more in it than the printed material. They say they would need to print two volumes to fit all the data in. I don't use the book anymore. Besides being (deliberately) incomplete finding items is quicker using the CD-ROM. The electronic version is styled as webpages strewn with hyperlinks (I didn't and don't even bother checking out the pdf version). If you have enough hard disk space copy the entire CD-ROM and use that copy instead. Accesing the reference is much faster that way. Create a shortcut on your desktop or on the Quick Launch bar or anywhere it's most convenient. Please note that this is not a beginner's book! Buy this only when you've gotten up to speed on JS programming. This is purely a dictionary-like reference for JS programmers. I myself bought it while my understanding of JS was at kindergarten stage. Needless to say 'reading' it then was a disappointing experience. My fault, not Wootton's. These days I refer to it every now and then to check on syntax and usage. Don't waste your money, March 29, 2002 Reviewer: Russell Kim from Dallas, TX USA I don't know how I bought this book. At first glace of the book title, it seems very useful. I mean we all need quick indexed JavaScript reference. This book gives reference but not detailed reference. This just lists all properties and methods. Many times, it doesn't tell you how to use it. Usually, other books have small codes to show how to use them. This is almost like getting a W3 reference that's available for free for cost. Unreal! I will not buy book from Cliff Wootton, again. Further more, i will be more cautious about buying WROX book. Lately, their books haven't been very good. Either my programming skill gotten better where I no longer can read the level of their books or their books gotten worse, which I concured with the latter. Any other JavaScript book is better than Cliff Wootton's book. I can write JavaScript book better than this guy. Anyone who programmed JavaScript can write book better than this guy. You can download free W3 or free JavaScript reference from Microsoft, it's better than this book. You can go to free website, it's still better than this book. After my fraustration of this book, I've got "O'Reilly's JavaScript-The Definitive Guide by David Flanagan..." I highly recommend O'Reilly's book. Mr. Cliff Wootton, go back and rewrite your reference book. Why? Because you haven't provided anything more than what people can get for free. In fact, even if yours is for free, it still wouldn't be worth money because i think there are other javascript reference book that's not 1000 pages long. Look at the David Flanagan's book. It gives tutorial, in case a programmer has forgotten something, client reference, javascript core reference, DOM reference, still less pages than yours... Nice dictionary, useless reference, March 24, 2002 Reviewer: A reader from Brunswick, ME United States I understand that this is supposed to be a reference book and not a tutorial, but even reference books usually provide some context to their information. Wooten's book is simply an alphabetical listing of many JavaScript elements (though far from complete in even that). I can't imagine that some one wanting to learn about the window open property and the window close property would want to go look under O for Open and then C for Close. Most reference books prefer to give their information in context. That is, you probably want to go to the window chapter and read about all of its properties in that context. I RARELY want to look up a JavaScript feature based on its alphabetical ordering, and if I do, I use a thing called an INDEX. I can't imagine that a programmer could make much use of this book. |
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