Customer Reviews

Perhaps its me? - By: S. E. Parnell, 04 Apr 2007
I have owned this book for some time & I can honestly say it is unique. This is the only manual I have encountered that has been consistentin its inability to answer any query i have. Admitedly I am a Javascript novice but that's why I purchased this manualin the first place to help me understand javascript. The internet has quickly answered all my queries with ease & clarity, I really don't understand why this massive book is unable to do the same.
As I said above it's probably me, as you can see there are many glowing reports for this book. In my defense I have been involvedin the IT world for many years & have relied on manuals to help successfully resolve issues.
This book continues to remain a mystery to me & I am seriously thinking of banishing it to the great libraryin the sky.

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Definitive ? Absolutely - By: A. K. C. Green, 27 Feb 2007
After many years struggling with rudimentary JavaScript & never being able to find a sensibly structured book on the subject, a colleague recommended
'JavaScript - the Definitive Guide'. O'Reilly have never really impressed me as a publishing house but this book is the best there is. The coverage is as extensive as it is complete. Especially noteworthy is its carefully documented chapters on the relationships between functions & objects which other authors shy away from. Want to be as good as Dean Edwards ? This is the book to get you there.

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A needed update for an excellent guide - By: Michele Beltrame, 15 Jan 2007
The 5th edition of the one & only bible of JavaScript, by the language guru David Flanagan, is not a surprise, but a beautiful confirmation. The 4th edition, which I've been using until a few days ago, was (and is) an invaluable reference even though it started to become a bit outdated. The new version is even more "biblic" than before, featuring nearly 1000 pages of in-depth explanation & reference. New sections include Ajax (of course, it's the cool thing of these years!), client side graphics (SVG, VML & ), JavaScript namespaces & communication with Flash & other embedded media.

The book can be dividedin 2 sections: the guide - which occupies about 600 pages - & the reference which accounts for the remaining 400. Browsing the index of the book, it turns out the the parts are actually 4: for this article, I however merged the first two (the guide) & the last two (the reference).

The first section covers every JavaScript aspect, with a detailed explanation of the language & almost everything than can be achieved using it. What is being actually taught are the "roots" of all the JavaScript features: to build the complex things, you need to work on those roots (or to grab more high-level tutorials somewhere else). However, this book has everything you need, as you can figure the rest out!

The second section is the reason why every web coder will want to have this book on his desk everyday. The reference is detailed, accurate, thorough & very easy to browse. As I wrote above, it's dividedin 2 parts: Core Language & Client-side JavaScript.

Allin all, what can be said about this book? Even though I'm not fond of client side programming & prefer to script on the server, this is one of the few books for which I can really find nothing bad to say. It's well written, simple to understand, entertaining. There's also the Italian translation: there's the previous edition on the shelvesin Italy at present time, but we'll hopefully see this new fantastic edition translated soon.

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Can we have a review of the actual book? - By: A. McPhee, 10 Oct 2006
I have the 4th edition of this book which is very good but out of date. Unfortunately so are the reviews, including the description provided by amazon all of which seem to apply to the 4th edition. So what is newin this Fifth edition? I am none the wiser as to whether this is worth the upgrade.

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An excellent introduction and reference for Javascript - By: J. Brand, 02 Dec 2005
Probably the only Javascript book that you'll need for a long time. If you have programming experience & some understanding of object models then there should be almost nothing here that you won't understand & nothing outside of this book that you'll need. One of the bestin the O'reilly series.