Beginning JavaScript

By Paul Wilton

Book Overview

JavaScript is a scripting language that enables you to enhance static web applications by providing dynamic, personalized, and interactive content. This improves the experience of visitors to your site and makes it more likely that they will visit again. You must have seen the flashy drop-down menus, moving text, and changing content that are now widespread on web sites--they are enabled through JavaScript. Supported by all the major browsers, JavaScript is the language of choice on the Web. It can even be used outside web applications--to automate administrative tasks, for example. This book aims to teach you all you need to know to start experimenting with JavaScript: what it is, how it works, and what you can do with it. Starting from the basic syntax, you'll move on to learn how to create powerful web applications. Don't worry if you've never programmed before--this book will teach you all you need to know, step by step. You'll find that JavaScript can be a great introduction to the world of programming: with the knowledge and understanding that you'll gain from this book, you'll be able to move on to learn newer and more advanced technologies in the world of computing. In order to get the most out of this book, you'll need to have an understanding of HTML and how to create a static web page. You don't need to have any programming experience. This book will also suit you if you have some programming experience already, and would like to turn your hand to web programming. You will know a fair amount about computing concepts, but maybe not as much about web technologies. Alternatively, you may have a design background and know relatively little about the Web and computing concepts. For you, JavaScript will be a cheap and relatively easy introduction to the world of programming and web application development. Whoever you are, we hope that this book lives up to your expectations. You'll begin by looking at exactly what JavaScript is, and taking your first steps with the underlying language and syntax. You'll learn all the fundamental programming concepts, including data and data types, and structuring your code to make decisions in your programs or to loop over the same piece of code many times. Once you're comfortable with the basics, you'll move on to one of the key ideas in JavaScript--the object. You'll learn how to take advantage of the objects that are native to the JavaScript language, such as dates and strings, and find out how these objects enable you to manage complex data and simplify your programs. Next, you'll see how you can use JavaScript to manipulate objects made available to you in the browser, such as forms, windows, and other controls. Using this knowledge, you can start to create truly professional-looking applications that enable you to interact with the user. Long pieces of code are very hard to get right every time--even for the experienced programmer--and JavaScript code is no exception. You look at common syntax and logical errors, how you can spot them, and how to use the Microsoft Script Debugger to aid you with this task. Also, you need to examine how to handle the errors that slip through the net, and ensure that these do not detract from the experience of the end user of your application. From here, you'll move on to more advanced topics, such as using cookies and jazzing up your web pages with dynamic HTML and XML. Finally, you'll be looking at a relatively new and exciting technology, remote scripting. This allows your JavaScript in a HTML page to communicate directly with a server, and useful for, say, looking up information on a database sitting on your server. If you have the Google toolbar you'll have seen something like this in action already. When you type a search word in the Google toolbar, it comes up with suggestions, which it gets via the Google search database. All the new concepts introduced in this book will be ill

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0470051515
• ISBN13: 9780470051511
• Release Date: May 2007
• Publisher: Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, John
• Length: 792 Pages
• Weight: 2.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 7.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Excellent book...

For years I'd gotten by with learning/copying JavaScript from existing websites, and used "JavaScript for the World Wide Web visual Quickstart guide" as my meager handbook. I finally decided to get serious about it. Paul Wilton's book is very well-written and easy to follow. Even skimming the stuff I thought I knew I'd find cool new things I'd never heard of. As a bonus, his section on Regular Expressions, another topic I'd found difficult for years, is a real eye-opener. He goes through the RegExp thought process step by step, gradully revealing more powerful options, with useful examples. I'm finally going to USE Regular Expressions! And I'm not the only one who found this enlightening. Wilton was hired to cover Regular Expressions in a few other books as well. In short, I doubt I'll ever need another JavaScript book, and this was money well spent.

Thank You, Paul Wilton!

I bought the first edition of this text five years ago when I was just beginning to learn JavaScript, and I still refer to it on a regular basis despite having several other more advanced texts on Javascript, because the information in this text is so complete and well-explained. I am writing this review today because the book is here on my desktop as I am working on a script, and it occurred to me that I should take a moment to acknowledge what a valuable resource it has been for me. The first edition is dated, of course, due to browser changes mainly. The transition from Classic ASP to ASP.NET is another area where the technology has changed, but the basic information on the language itself is as relevant as ever. That notwithstanding, I'll have to purchase the 2nd edition now that I'm aware of it's existence. This book will gently but firmly take you from knowing nothing about Javascript to programming at an advanced beginner to intermediate level, and once you have worked through the entire book, you'll find yourself using it as a reference for the details of syntax or the useful little tricks, as well as the excellent documentation of the Javascript core and the various object models. If you are looking for information on more advanced techniques, such as object-oriented construction or extension, or very advanced DHTML, you might consider a text such as Danny Goodman's, or the Wrox Professional JavaScript 2nd Ed., or the Javascript Developers Dictionary which is available new for just a few bucks and is not bad at all.

Second edition adds great improvements

All of the reviews of this book from April 2004 and earlier are based on the 1st edition, not this new second edition which didn't publish until the end of April 2004. The second edition adds some new great coverage of dynamic HTML in more recent browser versions and a new chapter on JavaScript and XML. Throughout the book there are many new examples and all of the code is now updated to be sure it works with the latest browser versions.

Outstanding book!!

Beginning JavaScript by Paul Wilton is a great book !!! I have 31 computer related howto/learning books on my bookshelf at the present time, on subjects such as C/C++ Programming, Windows Programming, Linux Programming, Perl, Emacs, etc. etc., so I have some experience with different writers and different styles and methods of presentation/teaching. This book may be the best of the lot. Programming Windows95 by Charles Petzold is the only one that is probably better -- but not by much.The book is laid out in a logical, orderly, consistent manner from beginning to end. First you are presented with a concept. Secondly, you are given an example of fully functional code. Thirdly that code is fully explained, line by line. The book starts out with simple concepts and builds on them almost effortlessly. First you learn the core language, then you learn how to attach the JavaScript code to the base HTML document. Later you learn how to dynamically change the HTML document "on the fly" using JavaScript. Next,you are presented with -- interaction with the user through forms, string manipulation using regular expressions, Date objects and methods, Time, and Timers, Cookies, Dynamic HTML, Databases and server side scripting. I appreciated the fact that the examples given in the first 9 chapters work in both major browsers, so you are not immediately presented with confusing browser incompatibilities that complicate the learning process, but you are made aware of the incompatibilites later in the book when you are more able to understand them. As an aside, if I am a "little shaky" on one of the properties' or methods' syntax, and want to go back and review the concept, the material is quite easily found. The index is good as are the appendices where the DOM's and BOM's are laid out in detail.The book is exceptionally "meaty". Don't skip over any text or explanation of code, because you will miss myriad little tidbits of information and programming techniques that will prove most valuable. Some of the reviewers have complained about mistakes and typos. I have found most of the mistakes to be typos and the typos to be trivial matters, easily recognized. Of the 70+ examples give that I have done and experimented with up to chapter 10, only one didn't work as laid out in the book. (ch7 GlobalFunctions.htm) And from the thorough instruction given up to that point, I was able to correct the mistake and get that example to work also. In short, using this book, you can go from knowing nothing about JavaScript to building almost any kind of website you've ever encountered, from storefronts, to "virtual amusement parks". My hat's off to Mr. Wilton.

Nice job!

I've tried several tutorials on Javascript, and Wilton's is by far the best. If you know a little HTML, you can learn Javascript. If you know a LOT of HTML, his instructions directed at the new web designer are easy to skip over. Wilton very quickly moves the student into actual production of working Javascript pages, and weaves explanations throughout the examples so smoothly you don't realize how much you've learned until you look at your work. The real-world examples, which include online quizzes and a script for checking the browser version, are also highly motivating (versus books that push novices through endless versions of "hello world"). About the only thing I would add in a future edition is a troubleshooting chapter (the first example, of all things, wouldn't load for me initially, and I'm still not sure how I fixed it), and my only quibble is that the first time Javascript code is cited, the reader isn't immediately directed to Appendix C for a brief discussion of other tags. However, these are very minor critiques of a well-written, well-organized book that makes Javascript attainable--and fun to learn.