Jul252008JavaScript: The Missing Manual is OUT!
A quick search of Amazon for JavaScript turns up 7,889 books somehow related to JavaScript. So why do we need another one? I wrote JavaScript: The Missing Manual because when I looked at all of the JavaScript books then available, I didn’t find any that would help a Web designer get started with JavaScript fast and would provide tools that would let a non-programmer add professional-quality JavaScript to his or her Web site quickly. There are a lot of beginning JavaScript books that teach the basics of this powerful programming language–but many of those books don’t provide the information you need to really add the kind of interactivity you see on many Web sites today. Instead, you need to get the next book and learn a bit more, and so on until you understand JavaScript enough to really super-charge your Web site. The other type of JavaScript book is aimed at someone with experience as a JavaScript programmer–these books often have the real secrets that allow sites like Google Maps, GMail, Netflix, and others make highly interactive Web experiences. The problem with these books, for most designers, is that they’re aimed at PROGRAMMERS. There are a lot of people who want to make great Web sites but don’t have years to learn all of the intricacies of JavaScript (or the weird differences between browsers that makes JavaScript programming so frustrating.)
So what makes my book different? The goal of my book is to provide the very basics you’ll need to know to get started adding professional quality JavaScript effects, user interface enhancements, and interactivity. The first part of the book covers fundamental concepts in JavaScript programming–it discusses programming from square 1 and goes over the most important aspects of JavaScript. From there, I jump-start the reader’s programming by introducing a popular JavaScript library called jQuery. A JavaScript library is a collection of one or more JavaScript files that greatly simplify programming: a library usually makes common tasks that might involve dozens of lines of programming into a single command, so you write one line of code instead of 20. In addition, libraries solve the frustrating differences and bugs found in the most common browsers: so you only have to write a program once and it will work in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Opera. Most importantly, for busy Web designers, a JavaScript library lets you quickly add complicated effects (such as animation, or fading page elements in and out), solve common tasks such as building slideshows, validating forms, improving site navigation, and adding AJAX to a site. In other words, a JavaScript library lets you jump WAY ahead of the JavaScript learning curve and start doing cool things quickly.
I chose jQuery because it’s fast, free, relatively small in file size and is used by major organization such as Dell, the BBC, Netflix, Twitter, NBC, Bank of America, Amazon and even Google (see http://docs.jquery.com/Sites_Using_jQuery for a long list of sites using jQuery.) It’s also become one of the most popular JavaScript libraries. It’s supported by dozens of developers who are constantly working to improve its speed, power and features.
Well, instead of going on and on about the book, I’ll just point you to some of the tutorials that are covered in the book (yeah, in addition to the normal explanations you’ll find in most computer books, my book has lots of hands-on, step-by-step tutorials, so you can learn by doing, not just reading.) When you’re done with the book, you should be able to add features like these to your own sites:
* Photo Gallery
* One page FAQ
* Slide Show
* Form Validation
* Sortable Tables
* Simple AJAX loading
* AJAX Tabs
* Add Google Maps to your site
2 Responses to “JavaScript: The Missing Manual is OUT!”
John August 25th, 2008 at 4:02 am
I just picked up a copy of “JavaScript: the Missing Manual”. So far its just what I needed to start my journey down the JavaScript road. Will you be writting any books on server side programming such as PHP?
Chandra August 20th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Hello Mr. McFarland,
I am a Javascript newbie. I have good grasp of other programming languages(C, Java). I want to learn Javascript and I have a quick question regarding your book “JavaScript: The Missing Manual”. One of the amazon.com reviewers of your book (Mr. Merkey) stated in his review that your book uses jQuery syntax rather than Javascript syntax and that the syntax of both are different from each other. Could you please comment on that review? My goal is to learn generic Javascript from scratch, could you please let me know if your book is a good choice for accomplishing my goal? Also, please let me know the technologies(HTML, CSS, etc…) a reader is required to know to study and understand the concepts presented in your book.
Thank you,
Chandra