The Art & Science of JavaScript

Published by e-man | Filed under Development & Programming

Cameron Adams, James Edwards, Christian Heilmann, Michael Mahemoff, Ara Pehlivanian, Dan Webb, Simon Willison “The Art & Science of JavaScript”
SitePoint | 2007-12-21 | ISBN:0980285844 | PDF | 300 pages | 3,7 Mb

We’ve assembled seven of the greatest minds in modern JavaScript to teach you the most inspirational techniques you’ll ever use. From creating impressive mashups and stunning, dynamic graphics, to more subtle user-experience enhancements, you’re about to be amazed by the true potential of this powerful language.

With an all star line-up of authors including James Edwards, Michael Mahemoff, Ara Pehlivanian, Cameron Adams, Dan Webb, Christian Heilmann, and Simon Willison, this superb book will show you how to:

Create a slick Google Maps and Flickr mashup. Build your own fully accessible 3D maze. Create stunning vector graphics using the canvas element. Have some fun with draggable and sortable table columns. Give your site some extra personality with client-side badges. Write better code faster using metaprogramming techniques. Become a debugging expert using pro-level Firebug tricks. This book is perfect for intermediate JavaScript developers wanting to take their JavaScript skills to the next level without sacrificing web accessibility or best practice. If you’ve never written a line of JavaScript before, this probably isn’t the right book for you. If you have only a small amount of experience with JavaScript, but are comfortable enough programming in another language such as PHP or Java, you’ll be just fine-we’ll hold your hand along the way, and all of the code is available for you to download and experiment with on your own.Summary: Solid Learning ExperienceRating: 4§ I saw a bunch of things I *wanted* to criticize about this book but ended up being more positive as I began to see the educational value of the chapters. This book is not for absolute beginners by any means, however the material is presented in a smooth way as each script addition is explained separately. Do NOT expect to come away from the book’s chapters with code that can be immediately applied to a typical professional application or Web site. Things like a JavaScripted maze game can be great for learning some cool things but that is all. Even the practical-sounding features like table column sorting and table column dragging could not be applied to a production situation without considerable modification. For instance, the column dragging scenario depends on all columns having similar width. If not, then the result is pretty messy. And we all know that data tables can be messy in the best of cases! The index is miserable, but that is pretty much the rule for computer tech books. The ensemble of authors is top-notch and some, like Christian Heilmann, (Beginning JavaScript with DOM Scripting and Ajax: From Novice to Professional) have written excellent books you may want to check out. You really can’t go wrong with this book for a solid advance in your script education. §Summary: Artfully scientificRating: 4This is a very interesting book for anyone who is interested in going to the ‘next level’ of JavaScript. It’s not a book for absolute beginners, but everything is very well explained without wasting time on trivia. The chapter on metaprogramming (self-modifying code) is my favourite. Not only because it presents some very useful ideas, but also because it finally made me understand how JavaScript does certain things under the bonnet. James Edward’s Maze game is nothing short of a-maze-ing. It’s a fine example of what you can do if you have the ability to think outside the box. (Way outside, in this case!) The only negative part is the first chapter. Not because it’s not useful — it is! — and not because it’s badly written — it isn’t. The reason is that the code samples use XHTML markup but the JavaScript code will not work if that markup is served as real XHTML. The JavaScript relies on the HTML DOM, e.g., that nodeName properties are returned in uppercase. The use of character entity references is also ill-advised for XHTML. Unfortunately, there isn’t any informtion about this in the text. Someone who isn’t well-versed in the fundamental differences between HTML and XHTML would learn some harmful practices. The sad part is that it would have been so easy to write the JavaScript in a way that would have worked in both the HTML DOM and the XML DOM. The remainder of the book contains good code examples which don’t sacrifice accessibility. Having said that, I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn how to use JavaScript for something other than validating form input.Summary: Great JavaScript BookRating: 5I just received my latest book in the SitePoint collection, The Art & Science of JavaScript. As always SitePoint has gathered some of the greatest minds in modern JavaScript to collaborate on an amazingly easy to follow book. The Art & Science covers some great topics including Google Maps and Flickr mashups, building your own fully accessible 3D maze, draggable and sortable table columns, and much more! SitePoint has always amazed me with the beautiful layout and design of their books. Code is easily readable in a fixed-width font with a blue background. The book also displays Tips, Notes, and Warning icons to help expand upon certain points. This book is geared towards anyone who is familiar with JavaScript and wants to take their skills to the next level.

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