Customer Rating: 
Summary: THE Javascript Reference!
Comment: I can't imagine any serious Javascript developer not having this book in his or her collection. It is the most complete reference I have seen on Javascript, and one of the most professionally written books period.Where I work, the book is near ubiquitous among our web developers and has proven to be a valuable desk-side resource. I recently bought the 4th edition, after some of my coworkers commented on how worn my 3rd edition had become. No surprise, really, considering that I had to share the 3rd edition among six developers, all of whom were learning Javascript for the first time. I'm glad to once again have a nice, fresh copy of this book, and even more so, glad to have an updated reference with coverage of the new features in Javascript 1.5. I'm pleased to say that the 4th edition lives up to the reputation of its predecessor. Reading is easy and informative, and the reference section provides answers to just about any question you'd have regarding the language syntax and object model. If you're a web developer and have no other books in your collection, make sure you have this one.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Now I see why everyone rated this book a 5!!!!
Comment: It explains things very well and actually has pretty good examples of what they are trying to portray. This book isnt for a complete newbie. I bought another book called New Perspectives on creating web pages with HTML and XML by Patrick Carey. When I finished everything in this book made sense. I have had some beginners C++ programming under my belt. Ifs Whiles, doWhiles, Fors, Forins arent to hard to understand. Its very basic logic that non programmers can understand. I also like how they explain objects on chapter 8. Overall this book is real good. It explains everything well. It may not be for the complete beginner but you will need this later on so rather than take this book back the beginners should invest in a tutorial style book like A Beginners Guide to JavaScript and then read this book and everything will be crystal clear. I thought I might change my mind on this book after I got an intro to javascript. I also like the fact that it's a great reference.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent book, highly recommended!
Comment: As a developer with experience in many other languages (C, C++, C#, VB, etc), this book has turned out to be an excellent learning tool and reference for me. It covers the basic important aspects of JavaScript that you would expect in any book covering a development language, but without being too basic or tedious. Reading moves along quickly and there are just the right number and quality of examples to demonstrate concepts without being too vague or trivial. The author also does a great job of anticipating probing questions that you may have in exploring a topic further. I highly recommend this book!
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Reference book, not guide
Comment: The word "guide" suggests a book that will help you learn something from the beginning. This book won't.
"JavaScript - The Definitive Guide" is a very thorough and up-to-date compendium of the JavaScript programming language, so it's definitely an excellent reference book. However, unless you're already very familiar with other languages that have similar syntax and structure (C, C++, Java and perhaps PHP), don't expect to learn how to write JavaScript programs with this book.
The author has no qualms about using complicated language to supposedly "explain" simple concepts. You don't have to take my word for it; here's an excerpt, from page 110:
"The Arguments object has one very unusual feature. When a function has named arguments, the array elements of the Arguments object are synonyms for the local variables that hold the function arguments. The arguments[] array and the argument named arguments are two different ways of referring to the same variable. Changing the value of an argument with an argument name changes the value that is retrieved through the arguments[] array. Changing the value of an argument through the arguments[] array changes the value that is retrieved by the argument name."
Okay, so after reading the above paragraph two or three times you finally get it. But just imagine reading 424 pages (I'm discounting the reference part of the book) of equally dense text, with examples that are sometimes clear as mud.
Bottomline: Need a good JavaScript reference book? Look no further. Want to start learning how to write scripts for the web? You'd probably be better off with a book from the "Teach yourself" series (published by Sams).
Customer Rating:
Summary: For the experienced JavaScript programmer!
Comment: I am new to JavaScript programming and Webprogramming in general. This book was very hard to read and understand if you dont have some experience writing JavaScript. As a reference book this book is great but as a learning tool for beginners I think its terrible. I have only gotten to the third chapter so far and I had to go back to reading my 21 day JavaScript book in order for me to work up the the Definitive Guide. I think they should've added several chapters and tutorials for beginners so the beginners can get something out of this book as well. If you are a beginner or are a person that needs hands on experience to learn JavaScript I suggest that you get a book that has lots of tutorials and full completed examples and results and explains things thoroughly in regular words that normal people can understand. I would say this book is more of a JavaScript Dictionary than a learning tool. This book is definatively NOT for the new JavaScript programmer! I have always had good luck with the 21 day books so I will read that one first and come back to this one since my professor recommeded it and then decide if it was worth my money.
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