Beginning JavaScript (Wrox - Paul Wilton)

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	Wrox - Paul Wilton
Date:	25/05/01 (55 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to read, Lots of examples

Disadvantages: Big and heavy

As a Computer Science student, I've seen my fair share of books attempting to show me how to program in various languages. Up until now, over at least 6 years of various programming related courses covering a number of different programming languages, I've only come across one book that I considered to be of any use – "The Beginners Guide to Turbo Pascal", published by Wrox and written by Oleg Perminov. Now, I have found another, also published by Wrox.

"Beginning JavaScript" is a fairly hefty book, weighing in at around the 1000 page mark, and I do mean weighing! It's an absolute brick! It's definitely not one for carrying around in your pocket for reference.

The book is laid out in a straightforward, and logical manner and divided into 16 main chapters and 10 appendices. There are no huge prerequisites as regards previous programming experience, but an understanding of HTML (HyperText Markup Language) in the creation of static (i.e. non-changing) web pages is a must as JavaScript is a language used primarily for adding features to web sites. Basically, if you've already built a web site, even a small personal one, with a working knowledge of HTML, and want to move, then this book is for you. I'll briefly describe each chapter, giving you an outline of what the book is going to teach you.

The first chapter is used to introduce you to the concept of JavaScript, along with a description of the format of the lessons, and layout of the book. This is pretty standard fare for a book of this type, but there is one thing in it that I have not seen before which is a larger project running through the book which teaches you each concept of the language in a practical manner. Thus you can see how it all can fit together, and hopefully inspire you to go off and give it a bash yourself.

The next three chapters deal with normal everyday programming concepts like data types and variables, decisi
on making, loops, functions and the more recent concept of objects and object orientated programming. For those of you who have used C++ or java before, then you'll not be spending much time on these chapters, as they are fairly similar to these languages. For those of you fairly new to programming, you should find yourself picking the ideas up quickly as the author deals with everything in nice, easy to understand steps with plenty of examples.

Chapters 5 through to 7 concentrate on programming your browser and some HTML concepts like forms and frames. Again, like the chapters 2 to 4, there is plenty here in the way of examples, explanations and screenshots to help you get the hang of the topics at hand. This is one of the reasons why the book is so large.

Chapter 8 deals specifically with string methods. As text (or strings, to give it the proper programming term) plays an important part in any programming language, there are usually very special methods for dealing with them, and that's what this chapter is for.

Chapter 9 explains time and date functions and how to use them. It also explains the concepts of the time zones, using timers, and how these might be put to use with JavaScript on web pages.

Chapter 10 explains the concept of mistakes, debugging and error handling. Within this chapter the author show how to use the debugging tools for both main browsers as well as pointing out the common mistakes that people make.

Chapter 11 introduces something that all web browsers have come across at one time or another, namely cookies. This chapter tells you how to create cookies, use them, what they can and cannot do and storing information in them.

Chapter 12 brings DHTML (Dynamic HTML) into the picture. It explains what DHTML is, as well as some new concepts like CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and limitations of DHTML.

Chapter 13 explains the DOM (Document Object Model) which briefly is a standard
way of representing everything on a web page so that it is accessible with a common set of properties and methods in JavaScript.

Chapter 14 deals with plugins in the two main browsers. For those who may be slightly confused – a plugin is a piece of software that enable the browser to do something it normally couldn't do on it's own like play sounds or video clips.

Chapter 15 deals with the concept of server side scripting. Server side scripting is activating scripts which are available on your web server (i.e. where your web pages are actually stored) as opposed to including them in your web page and activating them when someone downloads a page of yours (client side scripting).

Chapter 16 then explains how to tie your web site into a database. It also explains some database concepts (not in any great detail because database concepts is a huge subject on it's own) and some ways of using databases with a web site.

Chapter 17 is the last chapter and is quite small compared to the others. It simply fills in a few minor details and jargon that the author feels may need explaining.

The rest of the book is taken up with the appendices and index. The appendices include such information as the answers to the exercises set in the main chapters, JavaScript references, browser references etc.

All in all, this book is very easy to read. It contains very little of the usual poor humour that normally runs through some books of this type, and explains everything in as plain a manner as the author thinks necessary without resorting to over use of tech jargon. The chapters are generally around 30 pages each and are full of screenshots, examples and step through examples. I thoroughly recommend this book for anyone who wishes to learn JavaScript.

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