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New Perspectives on JavaScript (New Perspectives on)
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by Patrick Carey and Frank Canovatchel
Sales Rank: 327748
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List Price: $74.95
$67.45
At Amazon
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Paperback: 816 pages
Publisher: Course Technology; 1 edition September 14, 2005
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0619267976
ISBN-13: 978-0619267971
Product Dimensions:
10.6 x 8.4 x 1.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds
Product Review
“I just have to say that I wish that all of my textbooks were written in the style of the New Perspectives series. I am using these titles for all of the courses that I teach that have a book available. As a teacher, I must admit that I need to “get a life,” as Patrick Carey is my textbook hero.” — Diana Kokoska, University of Maine at Augusta
Product Description
This book uses a practical, step-by-step approach to provide comprehensive instruction on basic to advanced JavaScript concepts. Author Patrick Carey’s fluid writing style and thorough explanations make even the most complex topics easy for beginners to understand and apply. With this book, users will be well on their way to create impressive web sites featuring animated text, image rollovers, pull-down menus, and drag and drop menus.
Customer Reviews & Comments
Perhaps due to the presence of coauthor Frank Canovatchel, there is slightly more clarity of thought and rigor applied to program logic presentation than in the other Carey book I reviewed (XML). However, I have to agree that the Review exercises at the end of each tutorial (I'm at Chap 04) tend to leave out critical information that doing the chapter tutorial should have taught. It doesn't. And to make matters worse, the index is incomplete. A pet peeve of mine is text books where you can't find information you either thought you read [and want to review] or want to know if it is somewhere in the book you plan to read [but haven't read yet]. Case in point: Review exercise of Tutorial 4, Step 5 says "Use the getObject() function to create three variables..." but the closest thing to a "getObject()" function mentioned in the chapter (or the book as far as I can tell) is the getElementById() which does not appear to be what is intended in this exercise. To make matters worse, the index does not list a getObject() function. Googling online revealed numerous tangentially related topics, mostly appearing to do with Microsoft and VB. So....one simple missing step and the exercise is dead in the water. Very typical of Thomson Course Technology textbooks I might add. So two stars because the chapter tutorials proper can usually be copied line for line (legal transcriptionist style) and will often work (not always, for example Chapter 03 tutorial created a opening HTML table tag and never ended it. Makes me wonder how well the code was tested.). No more stars because the end of chapter exercises are only moderately clear and tend to require that you somehow intuit exactly what logic the author had in mind at the time he was writing, and book is nearly useless as a reference to find more data. It is not for loss of words. The author writes like he is paid by the word. The exact same code is repeated three times in consecutive order but slightly different text formatting (for reasons known only to the author or publisher) and the verbosity of writing style would make a politician green with envy - yet seldom does it clearly and categorically really 'say' anything. Definitely not K & R. Lastly, the text mentions color in several places. For example, p. 172 states "In the figure, object names are highlighted in red, methods are displayed in blue, and parameter values are diplayed in green". I need not state the obvious: The book is printed in black and white. Obviously, a printing decision was made after the text was written and nobody bothered to proof for mention of color. Not to mention the resulting loss of information. I only bought this book because it was required for a class - I previously had the displeasure of another Carey/Thomson Course Technology book [XML] and know better than to buy one voluntarily. [btw, It doesn't help that IE7 javascript debugger gives clues about as illuminating as tea leaves. "Expected object, line 54, 1" - which is perfectly good, only said object is a container for all the code written in the exercise....well now that really narrows things down!!! :-( ]
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New Perspectives on JavaScript (New Perspectives on)
List Price: $74.95
Available from Amazon
Price: $67.45
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