OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/17326/Book_Review_The_Book_of_JavaScript Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:20:43 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com advertising on osnews :-/ http://osnews.com/thread?215107 http://osnews.com/thread?215107 Well, I'm not reading osnews to see this kind of advertising. This really not related to the future of computing...
I wouldn't mind if this book would be about advanced and less know features of javascript like prototyping/JS2 but this is clearly not the case.
I guess anyone who would want to learn javascript is able to browse amazon and read reviews over there if he whishes. Wed, 21 Feb 2007 12:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (benja) Comments RE: advertising on osnews :-/ http://osnews.com/thread?215112 http://osnews.com/thread?215112 Thom held a gun to your head forcing you to read after complaining and complaining that they served no useful purpose? Wed, 21 Feb 2007 12:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (JMcCarthy) Comments RE: advertising on osnews :-/ http://osnews.com/thread?215117 http://osnews.com/thread?215117 How is a book review advertising? Wed, 21 Feb 2007 13:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Adam S) Comments Thau's JavaScript Tutorial http://osnews.com/thread?215121 http://osnews.com/thread?215121 Many years ago I learned very basics of JavaScript programming from Thau's JavaScript tutorial on Wired's WebMonkey site (it's probably still there). He's very good at taking to the novice user through new concepts and I still feel grateful for the start his tutorial gave me. If this book's half as good, it'll be a great resource for the newbie!

For the more advanced user, it's hard to beat O'Reilly's "JavaScript: The Definitive Guide" which is sat on the desk next to me right now.Edited 2007-02-21 14:14 Wed, 21 Feb 2007 14:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (B12 Simon) Comments How many times I've heard this on an interview... http://osnews.com/thread?215129 http://osnews.com/thread?215129 "So, you're a Java programmer. Good, our web team needs a lot of javascript..."

That statement always makes me want to scream and run out of the room. I really wish Netscape had called it webscript, or browserscript, or something like that.

Am I alone in this feeling? Wed, 21 Feb 2007 14:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (fretinator) Comments RE[2]: advertising on osnews :-/ http://osnews.com/thread?215132 http://osnews.com/thread?215132 I think this is a perfect site for book reviews, especially ones contributed by users. I hope to see more. Wed, 21 Feb 2007 14:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (fretinator) Comments RE: How many times I've heard this on an interview... http://osnews.com/thread?215134 http://osnews.com/thread?215134 Hey enrages me. I feel exactly the same way about the 'C' shell too. Wed, 21 Feb 2007 14:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Sphinx) Comments RE[2]: How many times I've heard this on an interview... http://osnews.com/thread?215142 http://osnews.com/thread?215142 I think the bottom line is that the people involved in hiring programmers often have so little knowledge about the subject.

[Warning, begin off-topic rant]
Where I live, .NET is the big thing. I always get these questions about whether I am a C# developer or a VB.NET developer. I try to explain to them that in the .NET world the two are almost the same. You are coding the exact same API, and that I wouldn't trust a programmer who couldn't translate code between the two. When I say this, all I see are glazed eyes. To the people who do the hiring, they are as different as VB6 and Visual C++. I finally just gave up trying to explain it, and just made sure I had equal experience with both.

I mean, can it really be that hard to change:

Dim frmNew as Form
frmNew = new Form()
frmNew.text = "My Form"

To:

Form frmNew;
frmNew = new Form();
frmNew.text = "My Form";

Wow, what a magical transformation!

Granted, there are some subtle differences - keyword differences (shared vs static), initialization differences, etc, but they are trivial compared to the old days of Visual C++ vs. VB6. In fact, I think the differences are more mindset than anything - geek snobs vs. code cowboys (I'll let you decide which is which ;} )

[End off-topic rant] Wed, 21 Feb 2007 14:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (fretinator) Comments RE: How many times I've heard this on an interview... http://osnews.com/thread?215149 http://osnews.com/thread?215149 So true. Ironically, it was originally meant to be "livescript", but later changed to javascript, because it was released at the same time as the java-enabled Netscape. Apparently, they were confused about it themselves ;) Wed, 21 Feb 2007 15:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Savior) Comments Javascript: The Definitive Guide, by D. Flanagan http://osnews.com/thread?215155 http://osnews.com/thread?215155 I personally enjoyed O'Reilly's Javascript: The Definitive Guide, by David Flanagan. It's a sort of Javascript Bible.

http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Definitive-Guide-David-Flanagan/dp... Wed, 21 Feb 2007 15:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Joe User) Comments RE: How many times I've heard this on an interview... http://osnews.com/thread?215159 http://osnews.com/thread?215159 This is so true... I hear it all the time, people saying their site is done in Java, and the extension is .php, or programers who say they know Java, and then when you talk about JSP, netbeans, servlets, they don't know what you're talking about, then you say they are probably talking about Javascript, and they say "Yes, Javascript, or Java, same thing, every site uses Java these days". Too sad. Wed, 21 Feb 2007 15:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Joe User) Comments RE[2]: advertising on osnews :-/ http://osnews.com/thread?215160 http://osnews.com/thread?215160 > How is a book review advertising?

Because in the URL there is "osnews" maybe to get commissions on sales, but this is ok, I'm just assuming here. Wed, 21 Feb 2007 15:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Joe User) Comments RE[3]: advertising on osnews :-/ http://osnews.com/thread?215163 http://osnews.com/thread?215163
> How is a book review advertising?


We post reviews of commercial Operating Systems.
We post reviews of commercial applications.
We post reviews of peripherals, often provided by third party sites with whom we have a relationship.
We post reviews of handhelds and phones.

These things all cost money, so do books. By this silly logic, all articles about Windows and OS X are advertisements. Seriously, people. Wed, 21 Feb 2007 15:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Adam S) Comments JavaScript Bible http://osnews.com/thread?215168 http://osnews.com/thread?215168 Actually, Goodman's JavaScript Bible (Wiley) is a sort of JavaScript Bible. It's a reference, not a tutorial, but it's been indispensable to me for seven years running. Wed, 21 Feb 2007 16:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (snozzberry) Comments RE[4]: advertising on osnews :-/ http://osnews.com/thread?215171 http://osnews.com/thread?215171 Well, osnews gets money from Amazon for every sale done after clicking the link from osnews.

So it's a little bit dishonest to compare this with reviews about OSes etc.

Anyway I believe in that the reviewer was trying to be objective and doesn't has this profit in mind, from which he presumably doesn't see anything. Wed, 21 Feb 2007 16:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Ford Prefect) Comments RE[4]: advertising on osnews :-/ http://osnews.com/thread?215172 http://osnews.com/thread?215172 Well I wasn't aware that `the last great book about you favourite programming language' was part of the editorial line. Thank you for the clarification.

> We post reviews of commercial Operating Systems.
> We post reviews of commercial applications.
> We post reviews of peripherals, often provided
> by third party sites with whom we have a relationship.
> We post reviews of handhelds and phones.

And I really thank you for giving this insight on technology but I can't remember having read such a review with a direct link to buy the feature.Edited 2007-02-21 16:34 Wed, 21 Feb 2007 16:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (benja) Comments no starch press http://osnews.com/thread?215176 http://osnews.com/thread?215176 I like No Starch Press's books. I have read many of their books, currently I'm reading Absolute OpenBSD and Debian system, javacript looks really good I'll added to my reading list. Wed, 21 Feb 2007 16:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (happycamper) Comments RE: How many times I've heard this on an interview... http://osnews.com/thread?215329 http://osnews.com/thread?215329 Well, Under ECMA standard 262, it's known as ECMAScript.

http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-262.h... Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Jon Dough) Comments RE[2]: How many times I've heard this on an interview... http://osnews.com/thread?215377 http://osnews.com/thread?215377 Thanks, I'd almost forgotten. Thu, 22 Feb 2007 01:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Sphinx) Comments review http://osnews.com/thread?215606 http://osnews.com/thread?215606 Someone makes a review of a book. If it's a good critic and helps me to make a decision as to weither or not buy the book why not reward the author of the review he wrote? Thu, 22 Feb 2007 19:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Monkeyget) Comments