Professional JavaScript for Web Developers [Anglais] [Broché]

There is a line from Lion King where little Simba comments on his Uncle Scar's weirdness. Scar replies "You have no idea."

The main point of this review is that Javascript is a really weird contraption, and that this book points this out in a way that is very helpful for programmers coming from more traditional compiled programming languages.

I have programmed in C, C++, Java, C# for many years. I have read other books on Javascript which tried to teach by examples. With normal programming languages, this works fine. However, within a few hours with this book I realized that to understand Javascript, you must give up on some basic expectations you may have as a code developer. This was a surprise to me, but crucial to be able to learn Javascript well enough to work on non-trivial projects with existing code.

Javascript is simply bizarre. There are many different ways to implement object-oriented patterns which all use different-looking code, and have subtle differences, making it so easy to get bitten by unintended consequences. From this book I learned that there is no one solid way to implement the basic pattern of your code, you must make a choice.

If you try to read a Javascript book which teaches by examples, you will be in trouble when you actually start to modify someone else's Javascript code which used a different pattern. This book doesn't just show trivial examples, it methodically goes through how it works in enough detail so you can understand how it is working under the hood.

Also, the text has plenty of warnings about buggy implementations and common pitfalls. After you get about 1/4 of the way through it you will be wondering how any Javascript code runs on Internet Explorer at all, since about every other page is another 'this-is-broken-in-IE' warning boxes.

The text is written in a very clear style, never glossing over anything. It isn't at all cute or made to be entertaining, just kind of down to business.

There is no question I will be using this book nearly every time I have to work on Javascript code.

If you are just looking to make a little mouse button handler in a web page, this is probably not the book for you. It does not jump right into little useful examples.

If you are coming from a programming background in traditional compiled languages, and you want to know more about Javascript than little tiny scripts, IMHO this book is absolutely necessary. You will never regret purchasing it.

I usually get turned of by books this big as I assume they are badly edited. However, before this I read many books on JavaScript and while I learnt a lot from each one I never quite got my head around the more complicated parts of the language such as inheritance until reading this book. Zaka's just explains everything really well, though don't interpret that as meaning at length, I think his chapters are more the natural length of the topics they describe. Not condensed down to 'seem' friendly as in "The Good Parts".
This is the book which finally got me comfortable with the core language, though it also taught me a lot which I didn't expect to be taught or hadn't even heard of such as document fragments and many aspects of the browser API's. So while this book could have been a lot shorter by removing a lot of the stuff most people won't care about, I am glad the author kept them in as I found them interesting. Actually I wish the book was longer. And besides its well enough organised that you could simply skip to 'the good parts' and still end up with a better book than its restricted cousins.

If you have already read the previous edition of this book, the reading of this third edition will bring you a lot of new stuffs. This book is not only a complete rewriting, but also a more deep explanation and a detailed presentation of HTML5 apis.
For me, "JavaScript for Web Developpers" is really really more user friendly than "Javascript, the definitive guide". Code samples are easy to understand (and don't spread across 3 or 4 pages). The style is simple and the writing is easily understood by a "non english native" like me.
The only thing I would change if I could is stripping out the 50 pages on XML and replacing them by more of advanced techniques.
Definitly a must-have.