Rey Bango

JavaScript, HTML, CSS & Random Stuff…

Jan 21, 2009

Learning JavaScript? This is the Book to Start With.

I mentioned last week that I wanted to improve my knowledge of JavaScript and outlined some books which I really believe are top references for doing just that. The first book that I’ve started with is Beginning JavaScript with DOM Scripting and Ajax: From Novice to Professional by my friend Christian Heilmann. Christian is a YUI Evangelist for Yahoo! and a major advocate of usability & adherence to standards. He’s also an EXTREMELY talented developer and one of the coolest guys to meet.

I’ve had this book for some time but only skimmed over it when I first got it. I found it awesome then but now that I’m going page by page, I’m finding so many nuggets that it’s never leaving my library. Shame on me for just skimming it.

I especially like the approach taken by Christian in that he continually preaches unobtrusiveness and progressive enhancement throughout the book, thus laying the proper foundation for new JS developers. This is an important distinction from other books I’ve seen who love to teach inline JavaScript at every turn.