Thread: Professional JavaScript for Web Developers, 2nd ed.

Professional JavaScript for Web Developers, 2nd ed. by Nicholas Zakas is a great book for getting further in depth with the language. A great reference which covers a lot of cross-browser differences (and solutions). There's tons of information in this book, and it has helped me a great deal at work. I mostly use this for understanding others' JavaScript and also as a reference. Touches on advanced topics, but doesn't go too in depth on advanced design and usage, but covers plenty good information which experienced programmers can apply. The cover price is $50 - I was lucky to have this covered as a work expense. If I had to pay out of pocket I would say it's worth $30-$40. As someone who had touched on JS several years back, and was mostly afraid of it, I now feel a lot more comfortable developing and maintaining it. I rate it 4.5/5 stars (lack of more advanced design and usage), but well worth it for Beginner to (slightly) Advanced.

Covers multiple methods (with pros and cons) of OO designs, different types of Event mechanisms, the DOM, Xml, Ajax, etc. Even includes information on efficiency and speed.

[edit] I've read reviews of the 1st edition of this book, and many seem to be disappointed with it. Please remember that this review is for the 2nd edition.

Hey silly me, I just noticed you reviewed this book separately from that other one. Unless you are some kind of web wizard who snuck this onto the board in the wrong order to screw with my mind.

I have some negative criticism of this book in neandrake's review of "Professional Ajax".

It is not a bad book, tho. I actually feel guilty; it was good enough that I managed to learn javascript DOM and OOP methods in about a week and use them to write the client side of a dynamic database*. So Mr. Zakas must have done a pretty good job -- I'm just a nasty ingrate. It is very in depth and understandable, and his personality is imperceivable, which is a nice style. No hype or nonsense. None. By "doesn't go too in depth on advanced design and usage" I would guess neandrake means there are no big example projects that tie everything together, because I am pretty sure everything is there.

*the only thing I've done with that is create an address book...but it works. The "dynamic database" was my idea, it's not in the book.

Just to clarify, what I meant by not going too in depth is that yes, there wasn't any much coverage of large-scale projects. My concern in that area is about how well the content of the book scales. The content clearly useful in most all situations, but what about in larger applications (gmail, facebook, etc.) -- do they use the same techniques, patterns, etc.? The reason I made the comment is actually because of a video I saw online of a Google Talk where they had some JavaScript professional talk about making library in JS, and it touched on some topics that I wasn't familiar with, after going through most of this book.