JavaScript the Definitive Guide - David Flanagan

Advantages: Easy to use and read.
Disadvantages: A hefty book.

...As a Computer Science student, I've seen my fair share of books attempting to show me how to program in various languages. Up until now, over at least 6 years of various programming related courses covering a number of different programming languages, I've only come across one book that I considered to be of any use – "The Beginners Guide to Turbo Pascal", published by Wrox and written by Oleg Perminov, but that was years ago and is now hopelessly out of date. Now, I have found another, also published by Wrox. "Beginning JavaScript" is a fairly hefty book, weighing in at around the 1000 page mark, and I do mean weighing! It's an absolute brick! It's definitely not one for carrying around in your pocket for reference. For newcomers to web building who may not be aware of the subleties involved, JavaScript is not the same as Java... Read review

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Advantages: Internet page. An easy start.
Disadvantages: No real reference value.

...There is every reason to believe that the Visual Quickstart Guide “JavaScript for the World Wide Web” is, in its way, a good book. I suppose. I bought the book as someone who can program, well, let me clarify that further, I’m a Computing Science student who tends to sleep during his programming lectures and therefore, to date, I’ve never written any hugely successful C (++) giant programs but I I’m not a novice either. The idea of juggling the components of an array around is not something I would balk at. This book is not written for me. This book is written for the new type of computer “programmer” that the Web has created. The authors have carefully highlighted those people who wouldn’t be programming their own “Goto 10” loop if they didn’t have a web page to design. So, the pages of this book set out to clearly explain from... Read review

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Advantages: Covers every aspect of DHTML with excellent reference to browser inconsistencies
Disadvantages: Will slowly be going out of date - keep checking for revisions!

...Dynamic HTML - The Definitive Reference, by Danny Goodman As a reference book for HTML, the Document Object Model (DOM), cascading style sheets (CSS), and JavaScript, this book is unsurpassed. The quality is something I've come to expect from the O'Reilly series of internet development books. Not only does it cover every detail of these topics (up to HTML 4.0), it also states which browsers, and which versions, support each element. This alone is enough to make it an indispensable reference for the web developer. However, it is also clear that a lot of thought has gone into how the information in the book is organised, with good cross-referencing sections, as well as a good example-laden introduction and well-structured main sections on each of the technologies that combine to produce DHTML. If I were stuck on 37 Signals' desert... Read review

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