Professional JavaScript for Web Developers (Wrox Professional Guides)

A lot of books I see maintain a single focus (Firefox or IE JS) this book does a good job of providing a large array of knowledge with proper labels as to what will and will not work with the browser your programming for (or tips to program for all of them ;) )

Want to really lean Javascript? this is the book for you, an indepth coverage, once you know what's under the hood, all the rest becomes a piece of cake, this what Nicholas did in this amazing book, first things first folks, this is the one you start with!!!!!

This book is perfect! I have been needing a book that gives a complete study of Javascript as a programming language and this is it. Where most books discuss how to make a popup window, this book explains objects and inheritance and other concepts that take Javascript from being a basic dynamic script into a full featured one that is capable of doing practically anything you want. <br /> <br />The book is well written with both hypothetical and real-world examples. For each example there is a discussion about what is going to happen, the example that is notated for what is going on, and a post-example where it explains what basically happened. <br /> <br />If you are trying to learn on your own instead of taking a class, you may want to buy this book as it will probably meet/exceed your needs.

JavaScript has progressed from a nice little scripting language for some neat effects to a widely used programming language that is used in internal and external web applications. Not that it happened over night, but it eventually did happen and knowing and learning JavaScript is a desired skill in the web community. <br /> <br />This book by Nicholas Zakas goes language concepts such as ECMAScript basics, using objects, inheritance, the DOM, regular expressions and events. Basically everything you need to know about JavaScript to get a good handle on practical implementation such as form validation, browser detection, image roll-overs, sorting tables, drag and drop, error handling and XML handling, and flash embedding. This is a very complete book on almost every topic you can think of when dealing with JavaScript and current uses. <br /> <br />Chapter 1 - JavaScript History <br />Chapter 2 - ECMAScript Basics - Variables, Reference types, Operators, Statements, and Functions. ECMAScript - The core language JavaScript is based on. <br />Chapter 3 - Object basics - Working with objects, Creating objects, and Practical examples <br />Chapter 4 - Inheritance - Foundation of an object oriented language <br />Chapter 5 - Using JavaScript in the browser; basic JavaScript objects: window, document, location, navigator, screen <br />Chapter 6 - DOM basics <br />Chapter 7 - Regular expressions - Simple and complex patterns, understanding the RegExp object <br />Chapter 8 - Browser and Object detection <br />Chapter 9 - Events - Event flow, listeners, types of events, and cross browser events <br />Chapter 10 - Advanced DOM techniques <br />Chapter 11 - Forms and Data Integrity <br />Chapter 12 - Sorting tables <br />Chapter 13 - Drag and Drop - Learn how to simulate Ajax techniques <br />Chapter 14 - Error Handling - Try/Catch/Finally <br />Chapter 15 - XML in JavaScript - XPath, XSLT and support in browsers <br />Chapter 16 - Client-Server Communications - Cookies, HTTP requests, hidden frames, GET/POST differences <br />Chapter 17 - Web Services - SOAP, WSDL, practical examples <br />Chapter 18 - Interacting with Plugins - Embedding ActiveX, Flash, Applets and plugin detection <br />Chapter 19 - Deployment issues - Security and international concerns <br />Chapter 20 - Future of JavaScript <br /> <br />I've never seen a more complete book on JavaScript to date. If you are new to JavaScript or need a great reference or need to learn some advanced techniques (DOM, drag and drop, XML, web services) this is the book for you.