JavaScript Programmer's Reference (Programmer to programmer) - Softcover

Wootton, Cliff

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1861004591 ISBN 13: 9781861004598

Publisher: WROX Press Ltd, 2001

Synopsis

Covers programming concepts, definitions, core ECMAScript and JScript features, DOM levels 1 and 2, browser specific implementations, availability listings, server-side JavaScript, and Netscape Enterprise Server.

About this title

Review

JavaScript Programmer's Reference documents the standard versions of JavaScript, JScript, and ECMAScript and also catalogues the extensions which major browser publishers have added to the languages. In essence, this book is a resource for finding out how the major browsers (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, and Opera) implement their Document Object Models (DOMs), both standard and proprietary, and the means by which they access DOM elements through JavaScript and similar scripting languages.

This is a reference, so don't expect it to teach you JavaScript through any sort of tutorial (although reading the object descriptions can be very illuminating). Cliff Wootton has chosen to organise his work alphabetically, like a giant encyclopaedia of objects, reserved words, operators, filters, and other aspects of JavaScript and the DOM standards. As an appendix he includes a cross-reference which associates individual properties, methods, and event handlers with the objects to which they belong. Once you've located the entry you want, you'll have easy access (in the case of an object) to inheritance information, a syntax summary, and plain-English advice on what the object does. Tables provide implementation details for each property, method, and event handler, so you know what versions of which browsers support the language feature you wish to use. There are also references to standards documents and occasional illustrations of how to use the language element in working code. Though rare the illustrations are generally effective in clarifying the significance of language elements and the relationships among objects.

Cool features include Wootton's documentation of common errors and incorrect assumptions. For example, he's included an entry on Bar.visibility, a nonexistent property sometimes assumed to exist in the Netscape Navigator object model. The correct property is Bar.visible, the author points out. Also note that operators and other non-character entries don't appear at the front, before the "A" entries, as is conventional. They've been "transliterated", if that's the word, so you have to look up "Add" in order to find out about the + operator. Overall though, this is a fine JavaScript reference made excellent by its companion CD-ROM, which includes the entire body of printed reference material (plus some extra) in searchable form. --David Wall

From the Publisher

This book is aimed at programmers who know and use JavaScript in their day-to-day work, and who need a reference guide to the details of the JavaScript language.

Edition details

• Publisher: WROX Press Ltd
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1861004591
• ISBN 13: 9781861004598
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 1000