The audience for this book is beginning/novice web developers with a knowledge of HTML but not of JavaScript. The book begins with an introduction to basic JavaScript language features and then proceeds to work through a number of examples according to category (images, frames, browser windows, forms, regular expressions and strings, user events, and cookies). After, there are two chapters on AJAX fundamentals.
The book does not claim to be an in-depth resource. The general purpose of the QuickStart series of books is to provide an overview of the main concepts and practices in use by web developers today. It is meant to be a STARTING POINT to introduce novices to technologies, not as an in-depth reference. The authors of this and other QuickStart books point this out continually, yet still get bad reviews from people who have not taken the time to read about the purposes of various series from technical publishers. This is unfortunate for the public as well as unfair to the authors.
A previous reviewer mentioned what he took to be atrocious coverage of Ajax. The book contains two chapters exclusively covering Ajax. The first covers the fundamental techniques used to take advantage of this combination of technologies. The second chapter explores some of the popular Ajax toolkits currently available. This is consistent with the purpose of the book. Some readers may be interested in heading down the development path, yet others may be more interested in design and in using pre-existing tools. This book caters to both and has no intention of deceiving either reader.
The following quote is a good example of this. It is an excerpt from the title page of Chapter 16, which follows the introductory chapter (basic XMLHttpRequest usage, etc.) and precedes the Ajax toolkit chapter:
"[Writing] Ajax applications can be difficult. They often require a great deal of knowledge of working with the DOM, CSS, JavaScript, and server resources. Since this is a book for beginning scripters, we've shown you how to do some easy things with Ajax, so you can see that learning Ajax techniques is well within your reach. But many books have been written that are completely devoted to showing intermediate-to-advanced scripters how to create Ajax applications, and our Ajax chapters are no substitute for that kind of in-depth exploration."
As for the dual-column formatting that some reviewers disliked, it is consistent with the formatting of the entire QuickStart series, as well as the QuickPro series of the same publisher. The format is nice for tackling specific techniques in a concise amount of space. It is not as abstractly engaging as conventional technical books, but it is not meant to be. The format is excellent for explaining techniques (especial design techniques) as well as for conveying a sense of quick forward momentum.
I've only recently started reading books from Peachpit Press, and I will turn to them before I turn anywhere else. I am a web developer who has been doing light programming for the last several years. I like these books because they get me up to speed quickly, and act as a comprehensive starting point, allowing me to understand "where I need to go from here."
This book is excellent as a broad introduction with lots of real-world examples. If you're a novice web developer with a decent grasp of HTML wishing for a comprehensive introduction to JavaScript and practical JavaScript techniques, this is the book for you.
However, if you're well-grounded and are looking for more in-depth coverage of JavaScript and Ajax techniques, "Professional JavaScript for Web Developers" (Nicholas Zakas / Wrox Press) and "Professional Ajax" (Zakas, et. al. / Wrox Press) are excellent in-depth resources geared toward real-world professional development, and both are among the best peer-reviewed titles in existence on these subjects.
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