Evan G. Martin said
Wow - another amazing programming book from the Murach series. You may be asking yourself, "How good can these blue programming books really be?" I seriously doubt that you will be disappointed. Murach books utilize a very practical training approach and this book is no exception. By the time you traverse through each chapter, Ray Harris will have laid a solid foundation for the JavaScript essentials and then some advanced topics. I cannot overstate how the Murach books provide an exceptional training style unlike any other books. They focus on a unique methodology that presents well thought out chapter presentation coupled with good exercise application per chapter. Applicable exercises are another one of my favorites - not too easy, but not too complex - essentially cementing the concepts into the readers head. Overall the chapters read more rapidly than the typical programming book (often clouded with excess theory or abstract ideas). Murach's books focus on straightforward, real-world applications.
Shawn Jackson said
If you are new to web design or an old pro like me this book is a must have in my opinion. I love how it starts out with the basics like XHTML and CSS then moves on to the good stuff.
Each chapter is full of examples and sample code showing you how to do the most common techniques that you will face as a web developer/designer. I really liked the DOM scripting sections and how to manipulate the DOM on the fly. Learning object coding is so important and is key if you want to really be good at Javascript. It was cool to see the sections on JQuery and DOJO since I'm staring to use these libraries heavily on my sites.
I feel it's so important to understand not only how to build nice looking sites but to know how to code them for speed and browser compatibility. This book covers these essentials and even walks you through Firebug and how to use it to identify problem areas in your web applications. I have not seen a better book on the subject and I hope you learn just as much as I did from it. This one will be on my desk for a while!
Kurt Pruhs said
I am a graphic artist doing web development, I'm not a programmer. Fortunately for me, and any of you out there who are like me, Ray Harris wrote this book. He speaks every-day English and doesn't assume you know too much. His text is very clear and strait forward. This book has given me the technical knowledge I need to create dynamic web sites and understand the DOM and Object Oriented programing. It has also prepared me to take on other internet development languages like PHP, perl, and MYSQL.
I highly recommend this book.
Jack D. Corbett said
I'm an experienced database developer who has had to move into more web programming for my current project which includes some AJAX functionality. I've programmed in VB, VB.NET, C#, classic asp, and ASP.NET, but never done anything but read and debug other people's javascript code. The extent of my knowledge was that "=" is assignment, "==" is comparison, ";" end lines, and curly braces "{}" begin and end code blocks (functions, control of flow).
This book was great for me as it started with basics in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and then moved into more advanced topics. The author does a good job keeping the book moving and building on the previous sections. The exercises at the end of the chapters are well done and build on each other leading to working applications. You get XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, and DOM Scripting, all building on each other from basic to complex. If you are already an accomplished web developer (HTML, CSS) then you can skip those sections and dive right into javascripting and take off running. For a beginner you can read from cover to cover and gain an understanding of most web programming concepts, at least from the browser side. The only thing I have found missing is what to do if the user has turned off javascript in the browser.
This is the first Murach book I've read and I learned to enjoy the the unique format with text on the left and code and summary on the right. For some of the simpler or more familiar topics, I was able to just read the right hand page and move on. I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn javascript. I would also buy other Murach books based on my experience with this one.
P. Byrne said
As a long time reader of Murach's books I've never been disappointed with their product and this book is no exception.
The author of this book does an excellent job of covering the fundamentals as well as some of the more advanced topics such as the use of objects, exception handling, data validation, and controlling the web browser. There is even a chapter included on how to use the JavaScript libraries. The book is written in the paired page format (with the detailed information on the left hand page and the summary and guidelines on the right hand page) that has become a standard in Murach books.
There are numerous code samples and exercises that can be used to test the reader's knowledge of the content that is being conveyed by the author.
I found this book to be well written and easy to digest.
I will certainly keep it for use as a future reference in my technical library.
Pat B.
Mobile, AL
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