JavaScript and JQuery: Interactive Front-End Web Development by Jon Duckett

JavaScript and JQuery by Jon Duckett – This full-color book will show you how to make your websites more interactive and your interfaces more interesting and intuitive.

THIS BOOK COVERS:

Basic programming concepts – assuming no prior knowledge of programming beyond an ability to create a web page using HTML & CSS
Core elements of the JavaScript language – so you can learn how to write your own scripts from scratch
jQuery – which will allow you to simplify the process of writing scripts (this is introduced half-way through the book once you have a solid understanding of JavaScript)
How to recreate techniques you will have seen on other web sites such as sliders, content filters, form validation, updating content using Ajax, and much more (these examples demonstrate writing your own scripts from scratch and how the theory you have learned is put into practice).

As with our first book (the best-selling HTML & CSS: Design and Build Websites), each chapter:

Breaks subjects down into bite-sized chunks with a new topic on each page
Contains clear descriptions of syntax, each one demonstrated with inspiring code samples
Uses diagrams and photography to explain complex concepts in a visual way

By the end of the book, not only will you be able to use the thousands of scripts, JavaScript APIs, and jQuery plugins that are freely available on the web, and be able to customize them – you will also be able to create your own scripts from scratch.

If you’re looking to create more enriching web experiences, then this is the book for you.

Table of Contents

Review by Kyle Halleman

I love Jon Duckett’s HTML and CSS book, it has been an invaluable resource in my career. I first started learning web development using it. I was eagerly awaiting this book for over a year. I couldn’t wait to learn JavaScript any longer, so I picked up JavaScript: The Definitive Guide and learned a lot online thanks to Codecademy, CodeAvengers, and lots of other great online resources. So, I have a pretty good grasp of JavaScript and use it every day in my job. I still picked up this book when it was released because Duckett’s previous book was so important to me and it never hurts to get different perspectives and reinforce my skills and knowledge.

I’m about halfway through this book so far and I love it, I’m learning some new things and understanding some concepts from a different angle than I previously did. So, it’s already worth the price. However, this book could have used another pass through by a technical editor. It seems like they switched up how they wrote variables and functions halfway through and forgot to fix all the examples in the book. I’m just finishing the events chapter right now and the final example has grievous errors that prevent the page from working as intended. See below:

function writeLabel(e) {
if (!e) {
e = window.event;
}
target = event.target || event.srcElement;
textEntered = e.target.value;
noteName.textContent = textEntered;
}

Rather, it should be:

function writeLabel(e) {
if (!e) {
e = window.event;
}
target = e.target || e.srcElement;
textEntered = target.value;
noteName.textContent = textEntered;
}

Go to the accompanying website and try it for yourself: the “Audio Note” text doesn’t update. I ignored the first few errors like this but when I got to this point in the book I just had to let others on Amazon know of the problems (my first Amazon review!). I like Duckett and want this book to succeed, but it needs another pass by a technical editor before complete novices can get full utility out of it.

Luckily, I have a good understanding of JavaScript so I can see where the errors are and correct them (maybe it’s all a test!?). However, this book is intended for people who have never learned any JavaScript before and thus they will not realize the errors in the code. I’m sure the second printing or edition will fix some of these errors. If you’re new to JavaScript, I want to recommend this but there are some gaping errors, so you should be careful and back up your learning with other resources.

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

This book was written for anyone who wants to use JavaScript to make their websites a little more interesting, engaging, interactive, or usable. In particular, it is aimed at people who do not have a degree in computer science (well, not yet anyway).

Programming books can be intimidating, so we wanted to create a book that taught readers how to use JavaScript in a gentler, more visual way. And importantly, we did not want to assume that the reader had any experience of programming beyond the ability to create a web page in HTML and CSS. (After all, many kinds of people are creating websites these days, and not all of us come from a programming background.)

So, if you have ever struggled to get a script working on your web pages, want a better idea of how to customize scripts, or want to write your own scripts from scratch, this book was written for you.

We can’t promise to remove the unfamiliar terms that programmers use, but we do tell you what they mean (with the aid of visual examples and diagrams) so that JavaScript won’t seem like a foreign language any more.