Book Review: Murach's JavaScript and DOM Scripting

Although not something new, JavaScript is gaining more prominence in web development these days. Web 2.0 has created the need for a richer and more interactive client-side user experience in web applications; JavaScript is able to fulfill this need for most scenarios. ASP.NET developers would have taken note of the attention paid by Microsoft towards facilitating easier JavaScript development through its Visual Studio development environment lately.

Murach’s JavaScript and DOM Scripting by Ray Harris comes at a right time when client-side web development seems to gain more importance. The book gives a primer on JavaScript and Document Object Model (DOM) development. Given Ray Harris’ vast teaching experience, I read the book with much anticipation — even though the book is Ray’s first. The 700-plus page book features Murach’s unique paired-pages format and is divided into four broad sections covering a total of 20 chapters.

Section 1 gives an introduction to JavaScript programming. It starts off with a nice overview to web development and JavaScript, including essential JavaScript coding, testing, and debugging skills. Towards the end of the section, readers are treated to a crash course in XHTML and CSS.

Section 2 goes deeper into the JavaScript essentials. Specifically, it dealt with working with web I/O, built-in JavaScript objects, control statements, arrays, functions, user objects, regular expressions, exception handling, and data validation.

Section 3 is where it starts to get interesting. This is the section where DOM scripting is discussed. Using sample applications like an image gallery, slide show, headlines, menu bar, product configuration, and a carousel application, readers are taught the DOM basics, advanced event handling, DOM manipulation, CSS scripting, tables and forms scripting, and animation.

The last section deals with other JavaScript skills like scripting browser windows and objects, cookies, and these skills are illustrated in a sample task list application. The very last chapter has actually more real-life utility in that it shows the use of three popular JavaScript libraries i.e jQuery, Dojo, and Digits. Complementing the final chapter is a sample register application.

The appendix provides detailed instructions on installing the essential best-practice tools required for JavaScript programming. All the JavaScript source codes discussed in the book are downloadable from the publisher’s website.

I find that the book has covered all of the salient aspects of real-world JavaScript and DOM programming well. I must say that the crash course in XHTML and CSS in the early chapters of book alone is worth owning the book.

The code snippets are well explained and the sample applications are relevant and interesting enough to get readers excited. The clear and concise writing style coupled with the useful paired-pages format should get web developers up to speed in JavaScript in no time. I'm glad that the author has addressed the nuances found in the different browser JavaScript interpreters.

If there’s something I wished to see more in the book is probably a tutorial on introductory AJAX either using raw JavaScript or with the help of the jQuery library; but I guess that’s for the readers to explore.

All things considered, this book is probably one of the best JavaScript books I've come across and it certainly deserves to be a must-have for any beginning web developer. Even for advanced professional web developers, the book is a great reference resource to have.

Jason Ong
-- October 2009

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