Practical JavaScript, DOM Scripting and Ajax Projects

I've been a fan of Frank Zammetti's writing since the first book I read of his. I was browsing through a local bookstore one day, taking a look at the Javascript and AJAX-related books available, and ran into another book by Frank Zammetti on a similar topic. One of the things I like to do when looking over technical books is read the dedication... authors tend to express themselves more openly in the dedication. In that book's dedication, I saw a Babylon 5 reference. That really caught my attention, and I pulled the book out to read more. It really paid off. <br /> <br /> <br />The Pros <br /> <br />Zammetti has a very "friendly" style of writing. His writing seems like he was actually speaking to the reader, and it's like he's talking to a friend. He intersperses humor into his writing rather regularly, in such a way that reading never becomes boring. His writing style makes the book very accessible, regardless of programming experience. <br /> <br />Mr. Zammetti is a proponant of the "hands-on" approach. This book is all practical projects, all with full source code. (The source code is available from the publisher's web site.) Each chapter essentially breaks down a project, explaining why each section was written the way it was, and how to apply the theory behind it. This means a programmer can get a project working using the included source code, and then go through Zammetti's text to learn how it works. Working with this book feels like a hands-on project with a teacher available, as opposed to some other technical books which feel like a lecture. <br /> <br />Despite the emphasis on getting hands-on with projects, this book can be utilized easily even without working with the included code, as Zammetti's descriptions and examples are all very well written for accessibility and ease of understanding. The selection of projects is varied and has a pretty wide range of subjects, and includes building your own Javascript library early on which contains many helpful functions not available in stock Javascript. Also, the introductory chapters of the book have a very good "refresher" on basic Javascript concepts and best practices. This section has a good deal of information I found valuable. (For instance, which string concatenation method takes 3000 milliseconds longer in IE than in Firefox?) <br /> <br /> <br />The Cons <br /> <br />Both of Zammetti's books showcase a wide variety of frameworks and extensions. This is a good thing and a bad thing. It's good in that it gives the reader knowledge about a large number of different frameworks (prototype, Dojo, etc). The downside is that it may result in reliance upon one or more of those frameworks. <br /> <br />The other downside about this specific book is that it's hard to track down specific techniques within the projects themselves. For instance, an autocomplete field with a "drop-down" list of recommendations. This is only a minor inconvenience, as the goal of the book is on full working projects, not just the elements inside of the projects, and it's organized accordingly. <br /> <br />Both of the aforementioned cons are really more a matter of personal preference than a problem with the book itself. I only use frameworks when absolutely necessary, for instance. <br /> <br /> <br />Summary <br /> <br />I'm very impressed with both of Frank Zammetti's coding books. This one was on pre-order for a good long while, and it was completely worth the wait. The focus is very tightly upon web applications independant of server backend, and it's a great read. I highly recommend picking this book up if you're wanting to improve your understanding of DOM and Javascript techniques.