Modern JavaScript: Develop and Design 1st Edition

Currently have 10+ books on JavaScript in my reference library to include JavaScript: The good parts, JavaScript with DOM Scripting and Ajax, JavaScript Bible Seventh addition (don't get this one), JavaScript For the World Wide Web (an oldie), JavaScript the Definitive Guide and a few others that aren't right behind me in The JavaScript section of my library.This is a superior book for beginners and I highly recommend it as in if you want to teach yourself JavaScript buy this book, but... read the rest of the review.Modern JavaScript is to my mind the very best of the bunch for the following reasons:It is comprehensive: Hard to find on the web/or to just think of yourself things like the ternary conditional operator, the fact that PHP uses the name attribute of an element while JavaScript uses the id attribute, detailed inclusion of the Date object, proper use of break, return and continue and more are included.Functional aspects outside the strict scope of JavaScript, topics one needs to know to use JavaScript are covered. These would include a fair coverage of HTML5, how to use Firebug, and a discussion of IDE (integrated development environments).The index, (disclaimer: I have not checked every entry and am not about to do so) seems complete, a very important aspect for a reference book.The style is academic text book lite, academic style with out the academic double talk. A then b and then c building on a and b, with questions at the end of the chapters and a review. I would think this would make a great text book. Apparently at least one person had an issue with it. With all due respect nothing is perfect and if I had a professor who could not figure out how to get a bit of code to work, or lacked wisdom to say "Hmmm, that is bad so just skip it", well... you get the idea. More telling is that Mr Ullman directly states to go to his site if there are issues. The authors of serious works that I have personally known aggressively desire to repair any issues in their work. I have been involved with the publication of a serious technical book: you practically have to be a Tibetan monk to put in the hours to get every small detail right. For instance there is an error on page 108. Under "If you don't provide an argument to the ... " it should be num.toFixed() or num.toFixed(0) not num.toFixed(3). But there is a solution for all this. read on.BUT:The examples are limited. They are absolutely correct, but, with small exception, only one complete example is given, if that, per topic. For instance on page 207 the split() function is introduced and done in four lines with no line displaying the result. Some of the concepts are implicit, as opposed to explicit, referenced as opposed to stated if you will. On page 123, "...but shipping is a string because it comes from a form's text input." This is true, however the key concept to this is that all data retrieved from a form is typed as a string but it is not directly stated. There are many instances of the above two patterns.Another issue is that the code is not included as a full cohesive single set in the book. Every line is covered in the line by line explanation, and the code is supposedly (I have not found it necessary to reference it) on the site which is referenced many times. However, having many programing books, think low triple digits, the "on my website" referencing is problematic. Sites come and go and also require extra equipment and time to access. I consider this a negative, not serious as the code is in the book albeit mixed in with the explanations.So why do I consider this a must have for anyone wanting to learn or learn more of JavaScript? Because the above negatives are easily over come by doing a little homework on the web. Got an issue understanding something? Google it. The beauty of this book is that it is seriously easy to read, practical, and comprehensive, especially for a book that is only 600 pages, even if it could have been more like 400-500 pages without the giant margins. The JavaScript Bible, referenced above, is 1180 pages not including the supplemental "online" chapters and yet no where near as practical nor helpful in covering current concepts. My conclusion/experience is that it is far better/materially more important to see a concept that is not fully explained than to have it skipped.Bottom Line: Buy this book to learn JavaScript. While arguably not a "Great" book, it is an "Excellent" book and best of its class to my knowledge. Maybe Mr Ullman doesn't have to time to be a monk or what, but In my opinion, Mr Ullman did a great job on this serious work.

I have been trying to learn JavaScript for several months and have found it to be quite challenging. The first book I tried reading was Learning JavaScript by Shelly Powers (published by O'Reilly). I found this book to be infuriating. It is very confusing. I found myself reading chapters over and over and still not understanding. I got half way through chapter 5 and decided I needed to try a new book. The second book I tried was JavaScript A Beginners Guide (third edition) by John Pollock. I read this book twice. It was much easier to understand however it was out of date, many of the examples did not work in modern browsers and it was very basic. Finally I have began reading Modern Javascript by Larry Ullman. I wish I would have bought this book first. I am only at chapter 6 but I am very pleased with the book. It is far superior to the others. It is the most up to date (as of this review), using HTML 5 in the examples and discussing modern browsers and techniques. It shows you tools to help develop and debug JavaScript (the other two books completely ignored this). It gets into more advanced, relevant concepts than the other books. His books are easier to read (I read his PHP book too) than the others. I just grasp the concepts better.The book comes with code that you can work with during the chapter but at the end it gives you questions and problems that you are on your own with (well kinda). I look at this as somewhat of a negative, not providing the answers but at the same time I feel it pushes me harder to really delve into the language and if I get stuck there's an answer, Larry's forum. This is the best part about the book. I have had several questions and within 24 hours Larry has answered them. It's like a teacher comes with the book. I find this really awesome. I've never wrote a review for a book before but when someone goes above and beyond like Larry does with his forum he deserves a plug. Do yourself a favor and buy this book.

Good Book, actually there are very few books of JavaScript in the market. It is a good Book for JS, suitable for MCA, CSE & IT Course.

a very useful book !

Come al solito i libri di Larry Ullmann mi lasciano sempre soddisfatto. Dopo aver letto il libro su Yii, il libro su Php, questo libro è il top!Piacevole da leggere, facile da comprendere, Larry usa un approccio da vero maestro nello scrivere i suoi libri

Larry Ullman has always been good at, as one reviewer put it, 'turning geek into English', and this book is another excellent example, in my opinion. I'm commenting only on the Kindle version of the book here, so would recommend downloading the preview version of the book first as you get a very good taste of his writing style. He makes it clear how he's approaching the subject and therefore whether it's right for you.This is the first technical manual I've downloaded on the Kindle, in the past I've always bought the paper version. But as the manuals are usually enormous and ugly I thought I'd shake off the Luddite in me and try an electronic version. Overall I'm perfectly happy with the result - the Kindle is far easier to hold than a 600+ page manual (fends off RSI, too), and the 100% black and white display of my Kindle Touch doesn't matter for this book.I was concerned though that hopping quickly around code examples would be a little tedious as you can't get much text on one Kindle page. The solution was easy - the Kindle for PC application, which allows you to read your Kindle books 'full size' on the PC while you're cutting code on the PC at the same time. You can also copy code for your own use from the application, although when you paste it it gets tagged every time with the full book name, author and page number.If I had any criticism of the book, I'd say that a decent knowledge of html, css and php is more important than it might appear when you first pick up the book. Javascript as a scripting language necessarily fits in only with other technologies, so you need a good grasp of the latter to benefit the most from the book.But overall I think Larry Ullman is like the BBC at its best - he educates, informs and entertains. Fab.

JavaScriptを基礎から学習したいと思って購入しました。とてもわかりやすい解説書です。セクション毎に設定事例をステップ・バイ・ステップで解説しているのもいいです。開発環境の構築に関するアドバイスも書かれています。