Amazon Review: Danny Goodman has repeatedly proven himself an excellent teacher of programming languages, and this latest edition of JavaScript Bible reinforces his reputation. If you're familiar with HTML and want to endow your pages with the kind of animation and interactivity that JavaScript can provide, this book is the best one you can buy.
 
Goodman covers the JavaScript 1.2 language comprehensively, and focuses on developing documents that fully exploit the capabilities of Netscape Navigator 4.0x. The author begins with the fundamentals of the language--variables, loops, data structures, functions, and the like. Then, he proceeds to systematically explore the more difficult characteristics of the language, including its limited object-orientation features and the extensions that apply to Dynamic HTML (DHTML). Server-side coverage is sparse, but that technology isn't nearly as widely used as client-side JavaScript.
 
JavaScript Bible contains both a tutorial and a reference, so it's useful to advanced JavaScript programmers as well as to beginners. Plus, the illustrative examples included in these pages--and on the accompanying CD-ROM--are generally useful. You'll find image-rollover routines, client-side database lookups, a DHTML puzzle, and many more programs that you'll be able to quickly adapt to your own projects. JavaScript Bible is a winner. --David Wall

Amazon Review: Provides a rapid and thorough exposition of the JavaScript programming language, as well as an in-depth reference section covering each JavaScript function, object, method, and even handler. Experienced programmers will quickly find the information they need to start writing JavaScript programs. --

Amazon Review: Part of the Visual QuickStart Guide series, JavaScript for the World Wide Web is designed to get you up to speed with JavaScript as quickly as possible. The guide begins with a quick look at JavaScript in general and how to use it to detect browser versions, test for installed plug-ins, and perform other key steps for configuring and using it wisely. The book then moves on to the good stuff--manipulating images and adding dynamic effects to your pages. Next the authors show how to use JavaScript to fine-tune your frames, forms, and browser windows. By the end of the first half of the book, you'll know how to add client-side dynamic data to your pages and manipulate cookies.
 
The book also covers more advanced concepts, such as interacting Java applets and cascading style sheets. A chapter on debugging shows you the most common JavaScript errors and how to detect and fix them. The book also contains examples of real-world JavaScript usage, and a language reference section and companion Web site contain all the code. Throughout JavaScript for the World Wide Web, numbered step-by-step exercises--complemented by screen shots--make learning new techniques a snap. --Stephen W. Plain

Amazon Review: Seasoned Java coders will find the JavaScript Application Cookbook compiled just for them. Written in the same vein as the old-style programmer "toolbox" titles, this book sheds the usual tutorial presentation and simply introduces a series of JavaScript applications you can use on your own sites.
 
The cookbook begins with recipes such as a client-side search engine application that facilitates complex database searching to maximize local processing. (An interactive multiple-choice testing application follows, along with code for an interface to multiple search engines on the Net). Other applications include a JavaScript shopping cart, context-sensitive help, cipher implementation, drag-and-drop-capable e-mail, and a cookie-based user-management system.
 
Author Jerry Bradenbaugh clearly has a passion for JavaScript, and he illustrates the capabilities of this modest scripting language. The code for the book's applications is available from the publisher's Web site, and each chapter begins with a step-by-step walk-through of the finished application. You'll learn how code works and get ideas for possible extensions you might want to create. If you're programming in JavaScript already and want to grow your arsenal of tools and techniques, the JavaScript Application Cookbook is an immediate code fix. --Stephen W. Plain

Amazon Review: At 4.5 by 7 inches in size and only 89 pages long, the aptly named JavaScript Pocket Reference will really almost fit in your pocket. Use this guide as a companion to turn to when you're in doubt about that function syntax or you're drawing a blank on the JavaScript object model.
 
The book concisely packs together the syntax of the scripting language, including summaries of expression and statement style. The real meat of the tiny title is an alphabetical listing of JavaScript objects, along with their associated methods, properties, and events. One nice feature of this section is the attention to the varying support between Microsoft and Netscape browser versions. However, this listing is useful only if you know what object you want to work with. Missing from the reference is a solutions-based reference to let you refresh your memory about how to do a particular task, such as validate a form field or roll over a graphic when the user moves the mouse.
 
One drawback is the book's illustration of the object model - done only in a small diagram. This is a bit of a shame since this is one of the key topics most developers need help with. If you're rather familiar with JavaScript, this pocket reference will be helpful. New coders, however, will likely find it insufficient. --Stephen W. Plain

Amazon Review: While it's doesn't cover JavaScript 1.1 as deeply as some other books, The Complete Idiot's Guide to JavaScript, Second Edition, offers a quick, to-the-point introduction to the subject. By the time you finish working through the explanatory text and examples, you'll know enough about JavaScript to create simple or moderately complicated programs and to figure out more complex examples.
 
Weiss's simple but adequate coverage of cookies (he walks you through writing a program that welcomes return visitors) provides the answers many JavaScript newcomers want. And although there's no companion CD-ROM, the examples, which include an outstanding blackjack game, are mostly short and always easy to follow. The Complete Idiot's Guide to JavaScript, Second Edition, isn't a power programmer's text, but it may serve your purpose if you're looking to solve a straightforward problem or two with JavaScript. --

Amazon Review: Designing with JavaScript is an excellent learn-by-example tutorial that helps you create dynamic content for your Web site. Each chapter tackles a single topic with a relaxed and conversational tone. The thoroughly explained examples in each chapter are blocked off in green for quick reference and included on the accompanying CD-ROM. Whiz-kid author Nick Heinle--author of the JavaScript Tip of the Week Web site and closet high school student--covers a lot of ground, from dynamic frames, forms, and cookies to the latest in both 4.0 browsers' versions of Dynamic HTML. One excellent chapter demonstrates how to easily include multiple versions of your scripts to work with versions of Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer, depending on which browser views the page.
 
This is one the best titles available for relative newcomers or Web designers who want to get waist-deep in scripting as quickly as possible. However, Heinle's examples will also be useful to anyone with an interest in JavaScript. --