programming language

This is one of the best programming books I have ever read. The author's style is very readable and he mixes in the appropriate amount of code samples to illustrate the concepts. All code samples are very well documented, which is a big help.

This is really two books in one. First is a thorough explanation of the JavaScript language fundamentals and how to use JavaScript in web pages. Then, comes the very complete reference sections which describe all classes and functions of core JavaScript, client-side JavaScript, and DOM programming. As a result, this is the only book you need to both learn and use JavaScript.

The author also does a nice job of pointing out which functionality will or will not work on Netscape or IE. And, he includes useful tips on how to work around some of these issues.

Those with experience in HTML but no programming languages may have a hard time with the level of detail in this book, but experienced programmers will appreciate the serious treatment of the JavaScript language. Beginners who just want to learn how to do simple scripts may want to look elsewhere, but for the serious web programmer, this book is a must have.

This was my first book on Javascript and I think I got pretty lucky. I purchased the 3rd edition which covers up to version 1.2 of Javascript. However, we up to version 1.4 of Javascript (this may change tomorrow!) so this book lacks coverage of some of the latest features.

That said, it is a well-paced introduction to Javascript and, in contrast to some reviewers, I found it easy to follow. The examples are appropriate for the introductory level of the book. Some parts are better than others. For example, the chapters on constructor functions and object prototypes does a poor job of explaining the advantages of one over the other. On the other hand the coverage of the String and Date objects was excellent and indirectly explained much of the philosophy of the language.

The reference section is superb -- there are many books in my library that would be much improved by such a reference section. This is the book I reach for when trying to remember the differences between slice, substr, and substring.

The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars is that it is more than a year old now and starting to look dated. It's high time O'Reilly published a 4th edition.

I have read many books on JavaScript before but this is by far the most comprehansive guide to the scripting language. This book is not for beginners.
I use it as a reference guide. If you know the object's name or the method's name on either client side or server side, you can just look it up in this book's index section and it will reference you to a particular page with detailed explonations and more often then not with examples.
Absolutely love this book