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Head First JavaScript
stoolpigeon writes "Head First JavaScript is one of the latest entries in O'Reillys Head First series. Like the other Head First books, it takes a somewhat unique approach in conveying information. The stated intent of the series is to help readers learn and retain material by formatting it in a manner that assists in meeting those goals. This means that the book is full of graphics, exercises and humor. There is also a refreshing note on who will benefit from the book. I've pretty much always thought of these sections in books as entertaining, in that I get to see what new way a publisher has found to say, "Everyone should buy this book!". Head First Javascript actually does a decent job of describing who this book will help, and who it will not help. That alone had me intrigued right from the start." Read on for the rest of JR's review.
Head First JavaScript
author
Michael Morrison
pages
615
publisher
O'Reilly Media Inc.
rating
9/10
reviewer
JR Peck
ISBN
0-596-52774-8
summary
A Brain-Friendly Guide
Who is this book for? It is for someone looking to learn JavaScript, with access to a computer and a desire to learn the material through writing code and working through a variety of written exercises. The book begins with the very basics of scripting and as it states, is probably not going to be enjoyed by an experienced programmer who is looking for a JavaScript reference guide. There is a lot of white space, drawings, pictures and opportunities to do the exercises I mentioned as well as the answers to those exercises. For the experienced coder just looking for an api or methods and properties, this will probably feel like a bloated waste of time.
Someone like me on the other hand, who would like to take a JavaScript class but just doesn't have the time, this book was just what I needed. I have done some programming, so I did breeze through some portions of the book, but in others I didn't mind the review. I like having new information and ideas soak in over time. This book is paced just for that kind of learning. It is possible though for someone to be too new to the topic. Some understanding of html and css would really be helpful. Someone who doesn't have at least an idea of how those technologies work may struggle a bit. Though I would think a little time with google would provide everything necessary to be up to speed.
There is an 8 page introduction that explains the reasoning and methods behind the books approach. The "Read Me" portion gives some great insight into just what this book is like. It begins, "This is a learning experience, not a reference book." and follows that up with seven main points. To summarize them, the book teaches what someone needs to know to get up and running. It is not exhaustive, it does not go over the history of the language. There are many finer points not addressed. Using multiple browsers would be helpful to the reader working through the book. Skipping activities will greatly reduce the value of the experience. There is quite a bit of redundancy, it is on purpose and beneficial. The examples are as slim as possible to focus on what matters and finally, not all exercises have definitive answers. If any of that turns your stomach, this really may not be for you.
The format does pretty much make reading straight through the book without working the exercises a waste of time. This was my biggest challenge with the book. If I wanted to read it I needed a pencil, my laptop, free time and somewhere I could work through at least a whole exercise at a time. This wasn't something I could fit in 20 minutes a night before bed. The authors recommend making it the last thing read before bed, but the end of my days are too busy to fit an exercise in. I found that a lunch hour, or a quiet week-end afternoon were my best opportunities for learning.
When I found those times, the book was thoroughly enjoyable. The humor was corny at times but almost always funny. I even chuckled out loud more than once. The exercises are widely varied as are the interspersed scenarios and stories that accompany the examples. I downloaded the necessary images for examples from the books web site though I avoided using downloaded code. It caused more errors due to typos, but I felt like I did better typing in the examples myself. I enjoyed working the cross-word puzzles and reading the 'interviews' with various pieces of technology. The time invested was much greater than for any other tech book covering similar ground, but I felt like the return justified the added time.
The style and humor reminded me quite a bit of the Dietel and Dietel How to Program books. I think that the scope is similar as well, as far as beginning from the very basics and building with each chapter. Head First starts with a basic description of just what JavaScript is and what it adds in the form of interactivity and finishes with a chapter that gives a good introduction to Ajax. In between the reader learns about all the basics like variables, looping, user input, validation, control flow, functions, code reuse, objects, etc.
As a hobbyist I felt like this was a great introduction to JavaScript. I think it gave me a foundation to build on and the ability to use more of the materials freely available on the web. Sometimes there is just so much of that out there, that it is difficult to know where to start. One of my primary goals in reading this book was to put together a couple simple web apps for myself as well as to get a better understanding of using the DOM for some Firefox plugins I would like to write. This book met those needs.
I think it is good to mention though, one last time, this is not a no-nonsense reference manual. In fact there is lots of non-sense and it is actually quite a bit of fun. But if the idea of 2 or 3 pages of big pictures to get across a couple simple ideas about data types bothers you, don't spend the money on this book. It will just annoy you and you will probably feel ripped off. On the other hand, if you've picked up hefty programming manuals and found that you didn't make it a quarter of the way through, and didn't remember much of the quarter you did finish, this approach may be much more friendly and give you a taste of success. And what good is a more information dense book if you don't read it or learn from it?
The table of contents gives a short summary of each chapter and a breakdown by section. The section titles are good for finding a place you read or stopped but wont always help find a topic. They are often named with the name of the exercise, not the subject they address. The index is good though and will help quickly track down topics. Like many new O'Reilly books, this one comes with 45 days free access to the electronic version of the book on Safari. The books site, linked above, has the table of contents, index, code examples and the complete second chapter available for viewing and/or download.
You can purchase Head First JavaScript from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Someone like me on the other hand, who would like to take a JavaScript class but just doesn't have the time, this book was just what I needed. I have done some programming, so I did breeze through some portions of the book, but in others I didn't mind the review. I like having new information and ideas soak in over time. This book is paced just for that kind of learning. It is possible though for someone to be too new to the topic. Some understanding of html and css would really be helpful. Someone who doesn't have at least an idea of how those technologies work may struggle a bit. Though I would think a little time with google would provide everything necessary to be up to speed.
There is an 8 page introduction that explains the reasoning and methods behind the books approach. The "Read Me" portion gives some great insight into just what this book is like. It begins, "This is a learning experience, not a reference book." and follows that up with seven main points. To summarize them, the book teaches what someone needs to know to get up and running. It is not exhaustive, it does not go over the history of the language. There are many finer points not addressed. Using multiple browsers would be helpful to the reader working through the book. Skipping activities will greatly reduce the value of the experience. There is quite a bit of redundancy, it is on purpose and beneficial. The examples are as slim as possible to focus on what matters and finally, not all exercises have definitive answers. If any of that turns your stomach, this really may not be for you.
The format does pretty much make reading straight through the book without working the exercises a waste of time. This was my biggest challenge with the book. If I wanted to read it I needed a pencil, my laptop, free time and somewhere I could work through at least a whole exercise at a time. This wasn't something I could fit in 20 minutes a night before bed. The authors recommend making it the last thing read before bed, but the end of my days are too busy to fit an exercise in. I found that a lunch hour, or a quiet week-end afternoon were my best opportunities for learning.
When I found those times, the book was thoroughly enjoyable. The humor was corny at times but almost always funny. I even chuckled out loud more than once. The exercises are widely varied as are the interspersed scenarios and stories that accompany the examples. I downloaded the necessary images for examples from the books web site though I avoided using downloaded code. It caused more errors due to typos, but I felt like I did better typing in the examples myself. I enjoyed working the cross-word puzzles and reading the 'interviews' with various pieces of technology. The time invested was much greater than for any other tech book covering similar ground, but I felt like the return justified the added time.
The style and humor reminded me quite a bit of the Dietel and Dietel How to Program books. I think that the scope is similar as well, as far as beginning from the very basics and building with each chapter. Head First starts with a basic description of just what JavaScript is and what it adds in the form of interactivity and finishes with a chapter that gives a good introduction to Ajax. In between the reader learns about all the basics like variables, looping, user input, validation, control flow, functions, code reuse, objects, etc.
As a hobbyist I felt like this was a great introduction to JavaScript. I think it gave me a foundation to build on and the ability to use more of the materials freely available on the web. Sometimes there is just so much of that out there, that it is difficult to know where to start. One of my primary goals in reading this book was to put together a couple simple web apps for myself as well as to get a better understanding of using the DOM for some Firefox plugins I would like to write. This book met those needs.
I think it is good to mention though, one last time, this is not a no-nonsense reference manual. In fact there is lots of non-sense and it is actually quite a bit of fun. But if the idea of 2 or 3 pages of big pictures to get across a couple simple ideas about data types bothers you, don't spend the money on this book. It will just annoy you and you will probably feel ripped off. On the other hand, if you've picked up hefty programming manuals and found that you didn't make it a quarter of the way through, and didn't remember much of the quarter you did finish, this approach may be much more friendly and give you a taste of success. And what good is a more information dense book if you don't read it or learn from it?
The table of contents gives a short summary of each chapter and a breakdown by section. The section titles are good for finding a place you read or stopped but wont always help find a topic. They are often named with the name of the exercise, not the subject they address. The index is good though and will help quickly track down topics. Like many new O'Reilly books, this one comes with 45 days free access to the electronic version of the book on Safari. The books site, linked above, has the table of contents, index, code examples and the complete second chapter available for viewing and/or download.
You can purchase Head First JavaScript from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
HEAD FIRST! APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE ow! OW! Why are you all throwing things at me?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Anyone who isn't willing to do whatever they need to do to learn good JavaScript isn't worthy of any programming/web design job. Even if that means using a book.
of the Head First books. I tried Head First Java, and Head First OO Analysis & Design. I found them so silly they distracted me from learning the material. Give me a concise, dry book like K & R... or for JavaScript, the "Definitive Guide" any day.
Doing a course on design patterns last semester we were directed to the Head First Design Pattern books. I refused to open it as a matter of principle so I can't vouch for the quality. It's just impossible to concentrate with all that noise on the page.
Instead I went straight for the G.O.F. book (the canonical book for design patterns) 'and never looked back'. I don't think I could have got that kind of understanding with cartoons and colour.
I would really like to know who reads these?
-1 not first post
I love the head start books from a purely learning perspective. I've reccomended Head First Java and Head First Design Patterns to at least 5 people so far who are just getting their feet wet with programming, and if this book runs along a similar vein I can imagine it makes a great FIRST book. Obviously these aren't good reference books, but they make it easy and pretty fast to get the basic material across for people who don't like the lack of personality in traditional "Learning XXXXX" books. I may have to check this out.
I agree though, sometimes there's a new trick that you never though of in a book and it's always nice to have a reference library that doesn't rely on Google.
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
to "ass-first" JavaScript.
Supply your own bag and hose...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Yes, the sane choice for any business needing some of their employees to learn javascript is to have them invent the proverbial wheel instead of reading a book. You, sir, are clearly a mastermind when it comes to corporate investment.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I tried reading the Head First book on Design Patterns due to a friend's suggestion a while back. I'll have to admit that the first couple chapters tend to unfold pretty well. They present the information in a way that doesn't make any assumptions and is quite accessible to someone new to the material.
However, once you "get it", the style becomes increasingly tiresome. After a while you just want the damn information, not some cartoony scenario that dances around the issue before *finally* getting to the point. You then say "I'm not an idiot, I'll just go get the real book on this subject." In other words, their style works well for the first few chapters, but not for a whole book.
Home Depot offers a discount on knee pads for IT workers. Go check it out.
I used the HeadFirst HTML book a couple years ago, and found it very helpful. I think and learn visually, so the pictures etc., helped me learn and retain the concepts. However, the index was a big problem, and O'Reilly's disclaimer about the index and references should be taken with a grain of salt. Well learned concepts don't write much functioning code. A good index is necessary to get back to that concept page and look at the syntax, etc. The HTML book caused me to waste a lot of time (leafing through pages 1 by 1) as I tried to get functioning code on new projects (not in the book), even though I have another HTML reference book. Very recently, O'Reilly emailed out an expanded index section to the HTML book. It seems that others have encountered the same problem. Before I buy HeadFirst JavaScript (which I may), I will give the index section a thorough checkout. I don't want to waste time again.
Javascript? I take it that's head first... against the wall?
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this post is too small to contain.
I found the "Head First" series to be a bit of a bore. I read half the one on design patterns (borowed it from a co-worker) and thought it a little "silly". This method of learning may be just what some people need. Other's (most?) would want something more traditional.
I really applaud the effort and like to see new modes of learning experimented with, however.
-- Posted from my parent's basement
For those looking to shorten their life-span due to stress; program in JavaScript over HTTPS with URL rewriting.
Satan would be proud.
throw new NoSignatureException();
I'll gladly pay as much for a simple, un-DRM'd PDF as I would for a physical book.
What I don't like is this 45 days free access to some HTML/Javascript monstrosity intended to allow you to read the book (in a standard web browser, no less) without downloading it. And then they have the gall to offer you PDF downloads of a few chapters every month you're subscribed -- yeah, I'll finish the book in less than a month, so that's way too slow, and the single gigantic PDF I pirated was easier to manage and search through.
I'll take the Pragmatic Programmer approach over this any day...
Here's how it works instead, now: The company buys the book, often a hardcopy if there's no decent electronic version. Then we go out and find a PDF version to pirate and share on the local network. It's a small company; it's not as if all of us are going to be trying to read the book at once, but it's much better to simply search through a PDF than to have to go read the index...
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I have also read (most of) Head First Javascript, and at the beginning of it, I fit the description of their ideal reader: knowledge of HTML and CSS, no programming experience.
I bought Headfirst JS at the same time as O'Reilly's "JavaScript: The Definitive Guide," which I've hardly cracked due to its dull style and assumption that the reader is already familiar with other languages. The difference between the two for a beginner is night and day - although of course they serve different purposes.
The way they explain things may seem childish at first, but it makes things memorable, and the times when I did the "busy work" of filling out crosswords of terms and penciling in missing code in examples were the times I learned the most.
For example, in explaining data types, they have you circle items in a drawing of a city street and tell what kind of data type would represent them: boolean for a car's blinker, string for the title of a shop, number for a 3-way traffic light. The concept of data types had not been clear to me in The Definitive Guide, so I appreciated HFJS's approach of representing real-life information as data types.
A few concepts seemed unclear at first - like the difference between writing a function and actually calling it - but overall this is a very helpful introduction to Javascript, and fairly painless to read. Once you get the basics, other books would be better for reference.
I read "Head First Java" back in college and have been reading "Head First Design Patterns" here lately. They're some of the only books on programming that don't put me to sleep.
I've heard Javascript is actually quite powerful and in some ways very LISP-like. In what way is Javascript LISPy? Anybody ever use it outside of a browser environment?
-ec
I have a copy of the previous version of this book and as a senior engineer I found it terrible. It's targeted at people who need to be coddled into thinking about simple technical things, and that coddling (read: stupid jokes and silly pictures) just gets really annoying when you are actually in the mood to read useful information. The JavaScript "nutshell" book is an amazing reference however, in that it gets right to the point and doesn't gloss over useful details. It is hard to believe they were printed by the same publisher.
-- http://thegirlorthecar.com funny dating game for guys
Very well written, concise review. Bravo! One of the most well written and informative reviews I have seen on here. Kudos for speaking English well and being able to organize your thoughts ;)
Bonus points for not summarizing each chapter and/or being redundant.
However, there is a considerable difference between a script kiddie looking for a chunk of code that performs a particular task then copying and pasting it in and someone looking for an api reference or examples to see if they're maybe not thinking of doing something in a totally back-asswards way.
But hey, it sounds like a better soundbite when you talk about shitting a quarter.
It seems that this book won't help with the copy and paste programs you get all over the net. Looking at the sample code they seem to focused on the DOM rather than the language itself, and they use plenty of DOM0 (i.e. non-standard) methods and use "</" in places which should actually close the script block in a standards compliant browser. There isn't anything that really exploits the OO features of ECMAScript and shows you how to write a properly structured program.<br>
I think that its a lack of understanding about the powerful ECMAScript features (such as scope chains and prototype based inheritance) actually works that leads to things like prototype.js, which is just a drain on physical resources (not that many people care) without any really useful features.
I used the HFDP book to teach a class on design patterns and it was a great resource.
That doesn't say much for the quality of your students. (I'm a CompSci lecturer too.)
I made the mistake of buying HFDP, thinking it might have some updates on GoF material, but it was a disaster on all fronts. The greatest indictment of all is that HFDP teaches nothing. Instead, it makes students go through the motions of finding a solution, and hopes that they find the gem of insight desired among all the noise. Well that's a very haphazard teaching method, and even an IQ 200 student can miss the point through distraction. The lack of precision and focus (and *pride* in it, jeez) is just distressing.
If you foist HFDP on your students, please ensure that they have GoF on hand as well, not as an option. HFDP works as use case development, but the use cases it makes are a total shambles, and GoF is needed to sweep away the mountain of crap.
And no, your point about snobs is a total straw man. The HF approach is simply ineffective teaching, except possibly for the 3-minute attention span brigade, who shouldn't be doing CompSci anyway.
Your indignation is simply amusing, in the face of a perfectly sound counterargument that exists in the very post you were replying to.
That sample chapter reminds me of second grade.
There's a lot of cool (and powerful) things, but I wonder if there's a book that delves into it.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
It's extensions, dammit! Or add-ons. I'm tired of seeing people use the wrong term.
There is often one best way of doing something. That is the gist of the argument against software patents.
Google is a great tool for finding that one way if you know how to use it. Reference docs provide no shortcuts, and can often mislead learners into an abyss of trial and error, often ending in hacks that just barely get the job done.
Javascript is truly complex when it comes to cross-browser compatibility and object management. The ambiguity of type in the syntax is also horrible, and the handful of built-in functions needed workarounds until recently (most notably date related functions).
For the web I would avoid javascript wherever possible. If you want to do anything serious on the client use FLASH. If you want to pickup AJAX tricks then buy a book on the topic, not on JavaScript.
If you feel the need to buy a book like this then you probably aren't getting the most out of google, or looked into server-side scripting yet. Which is a shame, because starting with js is definitely the wrong foot. You'll end up learning a ton of language specific quirks and hacks that are useless elsewhere, and will end up with the impression that half of everything is broken, or that they cannot be done. Try PHP. Java is even easier than JS.
Anyone with a clue knows that beyond simple mouse-overs, libraries like this are the way to go. Any book that states otherwise is FYE: For your entertainment only.
what a silly comment, of course it is.