I have tried many books on Javascript, and even (shock horror!) resorted to the internet to find out how to implement different techniques. Whilst there is a lot of information on the 'net, I have to say that there is nothing quite like a reference book, with the opportunity to plough through things, and page turn back and forth as you need to.
So my first reaction on seeing this book was "not another one..."
I was pleasantly surprised.
There are certain things which make a book of this type stand out. Firstly, the layout has a very simple "page per example" format. This means that you can scan through the book, just reading the headlines, until you find the section you want. It's a simple idea, but one which is increadibly difficult to do well. It requires clever use of paragraph design, graphics etc. At the same time, if not done professionally, the overall look can appear contrived, and awkward. Mike (or his publishers) have done an excellent job with the layout.
Secondly, authors of this type of book walk a tightrope between the two dangers of purile triviality ("did you see what happened next - I bet Noddy did !") and attempting to be a complex academic text book ("the object heirarchy predicates that all instantiations should have a constructor and destructor"). Mike has walked the tightrope well. He has used objects and methods, explaining what is required in a practical easy-to-read way.
The third challange with this type of book is the use of examples. Too often, books of this type attempt to show generic examples to the extent that they become pointless. In most cases, Mike's examples are solid down-to-earth snippits of code which people can easily transport into their own web site. Although there is no attempt to have a single unified "Project" (another temptation which authors can fall into - sometimes successfully, sometimes disastrously), each of these examples has a genuine practical use.
Not just the book
A free CD ? Nah - too "last decade"! What the publishers of the "Easy Steps" series have done is to publish all the code snippets on the internet. The book contains "box-outs" which give the names of the code examples. To try these out, you need to download the self-extracting executable, and open the HTML file with the same name as the JavaScript code in the example listed in the book. Simple !
Be aware that the executable actually tries to put these files in c:\windows\temp. Create your own directory for these examples - and keep them. The website also contains Unix Tar and Mac archive files (a nice touch), and even a one-page PDF addendum for the coding error on page 169. I wish all publishers took that sort of trouble.
Buy it
Do I have any criticisms ? Not really. It was a bit ambitious for Mike to try to have section called "JavaScript in e-commerce" in only seven pages. Barely scratching the surface is an understatement when there are libraries of books to cover this subject. However, in fairness, there are interesting techniques in the form designs, although it would have been more interesting to see how cookies and/or database records could be used to ensure persistance - the real issue of e-commerce. But maybe that would be straying too far from the core intent of this book.
This is one of the "Easy Steps" books - a type of book which I normally don't get on with. However, in this case, I would classify it as a "must have". The publishers have got the recipe right. Buy it.
