JavaScript books

[MartinRinehart]

I have Flanagan, Resig and Crockford. At present I'm using Crockford
almost exclusively. Should Crockford replace Flanagan in the
JavaScript FAQ "What's the best book?"?

 

[Peter Michaux]

I have Flanagan, Resig and Crockford. At present I'm using Crockford
almost exclusively. Should Crockford replace Flanagan in the
JavaScript FAQ "What's the best book?"?

I don't think so but it is good enough that it could be added.
Crockford's book has some good ideas but Flanagan's book covers the
whole language, browser scripting and the DOM.

Peter

 

[Gregor Kofler]

(e-mail address removed) meinte:

I have Flanagan, Resig and Crockford. At present I'm using Crockford
almost exclusively. Should Crockford replace Flanagan in the
JavaScript FAQ "What's the best book?"?

It's a good book, but it's focussed on JS only, no DOM, no browsers.
Anyway, it's the only book I have and - together with the official
documentation available on the web - it's sufficient for me.

Gregor

 

[lorlarz]

I have Flanagan, Resig and Crockford. At present I'm using Crockford
almost exclusively. Should Crockford replace Flanagan in the
JavaScript FAQ "What's the best book?"?

To fully appreciate the efficient ways of altering what _appears_ on a
page
and how, I recommend
some book with examples of the many ways to control this by having
javascript
control CSS. The JavaScript Anthology by Edward and Adams (sitepoint
2006) is
a good one.

 

[lorlarz]

I have Flanagan, Resig and Crockford. At present I'm using Crockford
almost exclusively. Should Crockford replace Flanagan in the
JavaScript FAQ "What's the best book?"?

See my review of Crockford and see why my answer to your question is
a resounding NO!

 

[MartinRinehart]

See my review of Crockford and see why my answer to your question is
a resounding NO!

Where is that review?

 

[MartinRinehart]

Found the review.

Your point is correct, that Crockford covers the language only; in
practice the language w/o DOM and CSS doesn't really have much use.
Crockford also has nothing for beginners.

I thought the whole discussion's book focus (I'm an ex-book author)
was off base. Book-based reference materials are a poor substitute for
online reference. (Looking up stuff in an index is pretty slow, and
requires a high-quality index, which is pretty rare.) Better to think
about information resources and where they're most effectively found.

Crockford's thin book is a superb example of why book's are not
obsolete in the age of Google. I guess it should be added to the FAQ
as a resource for experienced JavaScripters.

 

[lorlarz]

Found the review.

Your point is correct, that Crockford covers the language only; in
practice the language w/o DOM and CSS doesn't really have much use.
Crockford also has nothing for beginners.

I thought the whole discussion's book focus (I'm an ex-book author)
was off base. Book-based reference materials are a poor substitute for
online reference. (Looking up stuff in an index is pretty slow, and
requires a high-quality index, which is pretty rare.)  Better to think
about information resources and where they're most effectively found.

Crockford's thin book is a superb example of why book's are not
obsolete in the age of Google. I guess it should be added to the FAQ
as a resource for experienced JavaScripters.

It may be of interest to you to know that the ONLY JavaScript book
Crockford HIMSELF recommends for people to know the language is
Flanagan's . He certainly does not recommend his own strange more-
than-specialized
book.

By the way, if you want to learn good JavaScript programming, you can
learn
a whole lot more from Pro JavaScript Design Patterns by Harmes and
Dias (apress)
than you can from Crockford. Most all of Crockford's principles are
there
plus about three time more in good programming designs and practices.
Crcckford is a waste of money.

 

[Peter Michaux]

[snip]

By the way, if you want to learn good JavaScript programming, you can
learn
a whole lot more from Pro JavaScript Design Patterns by Harmes and
Dias (apress)

Are you on commission or something?

Peter