a good book

[Jamiil]

I am not a programmer by any means, but a dedicated aficionado. I have
good understanding of Java and C/C++, and now I would like to learn
javascript->ajax, but I don't know where to start. My HTML knowledge is
basic, however, with a little bit of an effort I can program a small
page.
Can anyone recommend a good beginner's book on JavaScript?
Please, bear in mind that it is my intention to learn to program server
and client side, thus the question, should I learn Perl, CGI or any
other language as well?
Any help on this matter is greatly appreciated.


TIA

 

[Randy Webb]

Jamiil said the following on 5/17/2006 5:20 PM:

I am not a programmer by any means, but a dedicated aficionado. I have
good understanding of Java and C/C++, and now I would like to learn
javascript->ajax, but I don't know where to start. My HTML knowledge is
basic, however, with a little bit of an effort I can program a small
page.
Can anyone recommend a good beginner's book on JavaScript?

No, as there aren't any "good" ones. You will *never* beat this group
with a book for asking questions and getting good answers.

Please, bear in mind that it is my intention to learn to program server
and client side, thus the question, should I learn Perl, CGI or any
other language as well?

Depends on what your server supports and what you want to learn. PHP is
just as easy as anything and probably more wide spread than any other
server language.

 

[The Artist Formerly Known as Kap'n Salty]

I am not a programmer by any means, but a dedicated aficionado. I have
good understanding of Java and C/C++, and now I would like to learn
javascript->ajax, but I don't know where to start. My HTML knowledge is
basic, however, with a little bit of an effort I can program a small
page.
Can anyone recommend a good beginner's book on JavaScript?
Please, bear in mind that it is my intention to learn to program server
and client side, thus the question, should I learn Perl, CGI or any
other language as well?
Any help on this matter is greatly appreciated.


TIA

Personally, I like Elizabeth Castro's "HTML for the World Wide Web" for
HTML/CSS, amd the latest edition (5th?) of "The Javascript Bible". JS
itself is pretty straightforward -- espeically if you already know C/C++
or Java. The tricky bits are in learning the details of using and
manipulating the DOM, dealing with the numerous cross-browser
differences, etc. When I run into a problem, it's usually more often a
CSS or HTML issue than a JavaScript issue, but that might just be me.
Some people who come from C++/C backgrounds might find JS's weak typing
a little disconcerting at first.

Of course, like most things programming, Google is one of your best
resources. This is especially true for JS.

Hope that helps -- m

 

[petermichaux]

I am not a programmer by any means, but a dedicated aficionado. I have
good understanding of Java and C/C++, and now I would like to learn
javascript->ajax, but I don't know where to start. My HTML knowledge is
basic, however, with a little bit of an effort I can program a small
page.
Can anyone recommend a good beginner's book on JavaScript?

If you know some other languages then you can probably read JavaScript:
The Definitive Guide from O'Reilly quite easily. I have this book open
on my desk often and although it isn't great, I find it is a good place
to browse and start looking before asking here. Unfortunately
object-oriented JavaScript is not handled very well in this book. One
link you might want to keep in mind when your Java/C++ class oriented
thinking gets frustrated with prototype based inheritance is

http://www.kevlindev.com/tutorials/javascript/inheritance/index.htm

After you learn the basics you might want to check out the menus
chapter of the following book to learn about non-intrusive JavaScript
using listeners and dom scripting. There are a lot of good ideas in the
chapter but the actual code is not so great.
http://www.sitepoint.com/books/dhtml1/

When you are ready for JavaScript libraries (ajax and others) check out


http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/index.html

http://www.ajaxtoolbox.com/

mochikit, dojo, prototype.js and scriptaculous are others.

Like Randy said there isn't a good book and this group has been very
good to me when I start to go beyond what I have found in books.

Please, bear in mind that it is my intention to learn to program server
and client side, thus the question, should I learn Perl, CGI or any
other language as well?

Learn Ruby on Rails for server side stuff. I learned PHP first and
although it helped me learn a bunch of things I am very glad I don't
have to use it any more. Ruby is a scripting language and Rails is a
web app framework. Ruby on Rails is great and it is the future for a
large chunk of web applications. It is award winning, gaining
popularity very quickly and has a highly active mailing list.

http://www.rubyonrails.org/

Get the pdf beta release of this book

http://pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/rails2/index.html

and this book to learn Ruby (a very cool language)

http://pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/ruby/index.html

Also check out the HTML and CSS tutorials on http://www.w3schools.com
and Eric Meyer's book Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide from
O'Reilly and Bullet Proof Web Design by Dan Cedarholm.

So that is Ruby on Rails for the server and HTML, CSS and JavaScript
for the client.

There is lots to learn.

Good Luck,
Peter

 

[Julian Turner]

I am not a programmer by any means, but a dedicated aficionado. I have
good understanding of Java and C/C++, and now I would like to learn
javascript->ajax, but I don't know where to start. My HTML knowledge is
basic, however, with a little bit of an effort I can program a small
page.
Can anyone recommend a good beginner's book on JavaScript?
Please, bear in mind that it is my intention to learn to program server
and client side, thus the question, should I learn Perl, CGI or any
other language as well?
Any help on this matter is greatly appreciated.


TIA

For an alternative tack to leverage your Java knowledge, see:-

http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/

This is a Google framework that lets you program in Java, and then
converts to JavaScript.

As a JavaScript programmer I am not sure I like being kept that
distant, but it may suit you.

Regards

Julian Turner

 

[petermichaux]

Jamiil wrote:

For an alternative tack to leverage your Java knowledge, see:-

http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/

This is a Google framework that lets you program in Java, and then
converts to JavaScript.

So is this how the Google folks actually write their fancy JavaScript
apps? This would be a big surprise to me. I would think that the
distance of separation from JavaScript would make it harder to write
code efficiently or bug free.

Peter

 

[Julian Turner]

So is this how the Google folks actually write their fancy JavaScript
apps? This would be a big surprise to me. I would think that the
distance of separation from JavaScript would make it harder to write
code efficiently or bug free.

It does certainly seem like an ambitious project. I have not examined
it closely enough to pass any form of judgement, but I agree with you
that the distance and the debugging would be a concern. I suppose the
"proof of the the pudding is in the eating".

Regards

Julian