Customer Rating: 
Summary: Worth its weight in gold
Comment: I own the third edition of this book, and bought it when I was starting to write a web-based decision support system for a very large beverage company. I can safely say that this book, and the HTML Definitive Guide (also by O'Reilly) were critical to the success of the system.I have seldom had a question about JavaScript for which I could not find the answer in this book. I referred to it so frequently during the development of our system that it is now the most dog-eared book in my collection. I'm going to order the fourth edition simply because this baby is ready for retirement. If you are learning client-side JavaScript, by all means purchase this book. The first half of the book is a guided introduction to the language and does a wonderful job of explaining the syntax of the language, the underlying object model, and virtually every pertinent feature of the language. The real value, though, is in the reference, which documents every object, method, property and event of standard JavaScript. Non-conformists who wish to exploit features unique to Internet Explorer will find some reference material here, but the book does try to focus on the "standard" features of the language, which I think is a good thing. You just can't go wrong with this book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excelent resource
Comment: I had a VERY basic knowledge of JavaScript coming to this book, (i.e. I could make an alert popup) and no knowledge of other programing languages (well HTML, but that doesn't counts). I found it to be an excelent resource and teaching tool. True, some parts are complicated, but you can skip around chapters with relative ease, and I could always figure things out with some puzzling. It's nice how authoritative it is, and how completely it documents the syntax. It takes a while to get into the programing mood and understand its power though, so it requires some thought to get into the more advanced techniques. I would recommend this book to anyone, with the possible exception of someone without a strong basis in HTML. Also, quite frankly, what you get out of this book depends on your intelligence. If you like to read manuals (like I do), and have a strong basic computer knowledge to back this up, it'll be all you could hope for.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Like most ORA books, it's a winner
Comment: While i'm generally against JavaScript (prefer CGI, CSS, etc.), there
are times when you will need browsers to do some data interpretation. JavaScript is definitely the way to go when you need that power.This book is definitely not a 'here's how javascript works' book. It is aimed for someone who has a solid understanding of web page design as well as a fairly solid grasp of the basics of programming. I particularly thought that the way Database linking was dealt with was done very well (altho it's much better done with Perl :) )
Customer Rating:
Summary: Buy V4, but don't throw away V3.
Comment: Having recently shipped an open source JavaScript application framework comprising 125,000 lines of JavaScript (TIBET) I can say it would have been impossible without Version 3 of this book -- and impossible with only Version 4 of this book. Where Version 3 focused on documenting the *reality* of the browsers, covering the various bugs and inconsistencies in detail, Version 4 abandons that approach in favor of documenting the *dream* embodied in the standards. While that's "a good thing", what's really needed, and what was provided by Version 3, is a volume that also covers how the browers vary from the standards. That's what made V3 the best JavaScript book on the market. Much of that content has been removed from V4 however. V4 is a solid effort. Don't get me wrong. You should have a copy. The coverage is for the most part accurate and accessible. The new content on Mozilla and the DOM/CSS standards is solid. But the missing material means you can't toss all your other JS books and just settle down with JSTDG V4 :(. With V3 you rarely needed to go anywhere else. With V4 I find myself looking back at V3 to check accuracy or going to the net to search for bug reports. The book just isn't as functional in the real world of web development. So buy V4, but don't get rid of that well-used copy of V3 just yet ;). ss
Customer Rating:
Summary: 3.75 stars...
Comment: if you're a programmer or a computer language theory fan, this book is perfect. for the rest of us who just want to know how to use javascript, it's too much information. get this book after you get a basic understanding of javascript from the web or more newbie-friendly books. if not for another introduction to programming book i own, i don't think i would have grasped many of these concepts.
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