The Pragmatic Craftsman :: Simplicity from complexity : by Stanley Kubasek ::

DOM Scripting
by Jeremy Keith
ISBN 1-59059-533-5
Date Read 5/2009

My Rating

I believe in doing things the right way. So does the author of this book. In this regard, this is a great book: You learn what the right way is.

Not for hard-core developers. The intended audience is web designers. I second that. This book is also an excellent choice if you’re just thinking whether web-development with JavaScript is for you. Or if you want to read about web-development’s best practices (read chapter 5). It is not thorough and does not cover the advanced topics, like OO programming, etc.

Doing things right. And how to get there. This the nicest feature about this book. Slowly, sometimes first showing the bad approach and then refactoring to a more best-practices oriented solution. Nicely done. I wish more beginning books had an approach like this.

Separation of concerns: Separation of layers. My main objective for reading this book was so I learn more about the best practices. I did not learn anything new, but reading about the best practices again is a nice refresher. Separating structure, presentation, and behavior is the most important best practice when doing web development. The author does a good job explaining and really diving into this concept.

To say it once more, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript should be separate. You’ll learn that in this book.

Object-Oriented JavaScript
by Stoyan Stefanov
ISBN 1847194141
Date Read 5/2009

My Rating

After reading my last JavaScript book, Professional JavaScript for Web Developers, I was looking for some more JS books to read. Something good. Then a few days ago I read a post by Klaus Komenda, Book Review: Object-Oriented JavaScript, and he highly recommended this book. (In the process, I also discovered DOM Scripting, and Pro JavaScript Design Patterns.) I picked up this book and had high expectations.

Decent book. After finishing the excellent Professional JavaScript for Web Developers book, the standards were set very high. This book is good, but not as deep, and not filled with as many full examples. It’s good, but not as good.

Quick. This book reads very quickly. The examples are short, the writing style is very conversational. That’s a nice feature. On the downside, sometimes a feature you’re reading is not easy and you’d like a bit more on the subject. You’re out of luck.

I learned a few things. Firebug console can execute JavaScript — I did not know that! I also got an overview of regular expressions syntax in JavaScript. Good job there. I also learned couple other things, but majority of the concepts in this book were included in the Pro book I mentioned.

Overall, not a bad book, but I don’t recommend it. By now, you know which JS book I do recommend.