Customer Rating: 
Summary: A Complete description of the language
Comment: I found it a very useful tool and an interesting reading. I've been using it to learn the basic principles of the language, the advanced programming techniques and then as unerring language reference.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Best JS book ever?
Comment: This was the best money I ever spent on a programming language book. Created some really neat WEB site features (like dynamic dropdown list boxes -i.e. proper combo boxes - which I needed) after browsing what was available. Some of the more obscure javascript features could do with some examples, but in every case I managed to suss out what I needed. Really, this IS the Definitive Guide!
Customer Rating:
Summary: One of the most successful Javascript Book
Comment: As a Web developer, who has written popular javascript code snippets, for thousands of satisfied developers, I love this book! This book provides comprehensive explainations about the javascript language. The author explains differences between netscape and internet explorer. One of the most important chapter in the book explains how to create an javascript object, inline functions, and prototyping. Build your internet javascript library of inline objects. Over time the power of this approach will give you an extremely feature rich web page.I wrote javascript packages for xml and dom, httpxml, the browser, date functions, form functions, windows, string, math functions, and numerous helpful javascript functions. Did you know that its possible to create recursive javascript functions? I wrote a javascript route that parsed an xml tree creating a tree structure in html. Did you know that you can control DHTML elements using javascript? I wrote an DHTML editor in javascript that built the web page entirely using javascript and DHTML. The javascript structure outputted XML (see the loosely coupled interface DHTML editor). Did you know that you can control multimedia using javascript? Javascript can be used to play music, display a show case of images, and create marquee and iframe news scrolls. Using knowledge from the book it was easy to build iframe elements in the form using javascript. Did you know that you can create calendars, calculators, and clocks using javascript? Javascript is a very versitile language. Javascript grammer parsing can be done so programming code can be stored as data but run as an algorithm like lisp. I was absolutely shock after discovering this capability. If your into expert systems or neural nets think about javascript. You can load data from either client side or server side data and manipulate the data with C like function providing: loops, arrays, associative arrays, functions, and recursion capabilities. Did you know that Active Server Pages can be written entirely in javascript? I though javascript was more robust than VB script. For example, the connection of ADO, XML, or an activeX object is possible using server side ASP javascript. I've used javascript to create database transactions, file manipulation, associative arrays, and data parsing. Javascript is a powerful development language. Hugh Websites run critical server side code in javascript. If you had to write 300,000 lines of code, wouldn't you like to write and maintain it in an object oriented language? Javascript is object oriented. Even though javascript is a subset of java, it seems to do the job. In sum, if you haven't invested yet in javascript, I strongly encourage you to do so and purchase this book. The book will help you reach a professional level of coding. Basically, my rule is if it can be thought it can be built. You think of a desired function capability and there is probably a way to create the functionality using javascript. Wow netscape your awesome in creating such a powerful language!
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Excellent resource, but needs examples
Comment: I have to add my vote to those who feel this is an excellent resource, but that far too much important information (regular expressions, for example) is discussed in a narrative style that only hints at the actual syntax. Once you know the syntax, this book undoubtedly is a treasure -- but now I'm stuck having to find yet another resource to actually teach me how to make use of javascript (if I'd known, I would have read this book *after* doing some good turtorials).
Customer Rating:
Summary: It didn't disappoint me!
Comment: Probably it is not for newbies.. not sureI am not new in Javascript. My first book was "javascript bible" by Danny Goodman, which got me started with it couple of years ago. Last year, by accident, I came accross O'reilly's Safari subscription project, and decided to refresh my Javascript knowledge. One of the books I checked out was David Flanagan's "Javascript The Definitive Guide". I read several chapters from it, and I cought myself enjoying it more than enjoyed my previous similar titles. So I decided to buy the 4th edition of the book, and was not disappointed. So what things does David do differently? Read on! I remember "Javascript Bible" by Danny Goodman starts off with hands on examples, which anyone without any knowledge of Javascript can try out in his/her editor. This is not the case with "Javascript The Definitive Guide". If you have no idea how Javascript works, you will not see a working real-life example untill Part II (page 181). Untill then, the author explains the core syntax of javascript, how javascript interperator works, how it wraps things into two objects: while interperating - Global and Call objects; talks about variable scopes and Garbage collection, objects, arrays, operators and other good stuff. It will tell you the different between object properties and variables ( or does it say there're no differences? ), talks about Regular Expression and nested functions. People who have little or no programming background tend to find this chat quite boring and meaningless ( as I would've couple of years ago ). But if you have some Javascript background, or at least know how Javascript works in the browser, and what to strengthen your knowledge of Core JS, you will find this book very informative. Part || is dedicated to Client side Javascript. That's where your browser comes into play and all the fun starts. Only here it will tell you that "Global object" mentioned in the Core Javascvript part is called "window". Talkes about CSS and DHTML, Scripting Cookies, DOM. It covers every single aspect of Client-Side JavaScript that a good Javascript book should cover. The rest of the book consists of very well designed references, that you will be using most of the time.
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