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JavaScript and DHTML Cookbook 153

Posted by timothy from the naked-chef dept.
Adios077 (Ada Shimar) writes "Ok, so I was reluctant when I first picked up and started reading O'Reilly's JavaScript & DHTML Cookbook. After all, I'm fairly proficient in JavaScript already (yes, get in line to hire me!), and if I needed some cool DHTML scripts, I could just visit a good site like Dynamic Drive. However, the book managed to both surprise and impress me, a great combination to have in a book." Find out why by reading the rest of Shimar's review, below.
JavaScript and DHTML Cookbook
author Danny Goodman
pages 576
publisher O'Reilly & Associates
rating 8.5
reviewer Ada Shimar
ISBN 0596004672
summary A surprisingly useful JavaScript book, even for people skilled with the language already.

I'll begin my review by making a bold statement -- if you've read and like O'Reilly's Definitive Guides on JavaScript and DHTML, you'll adore this book. I use the word adore very deliberately here, because in my opinion JavaScript & DHTML Cookbook is much easier to love than the gigantic and sometimes monotonous Definitive Guide series. Why, you ask? Let's see -- the book is compact (some 500 pages), concise, and filled with the essence of JavaScript and DHTML as far as what you can create using the language/ technology.

JavaScript & DHTML Cookbook is broken up into 15 chapters, each containing a series of recipes. The chapters are:

  1. Strings
  2. Numbers and Dates
  3. Arrays and Objects
  4. Variables, Functions, and Flow Control
  5. Browser Feature Detection
  6. Managing Browser Windows
  7. Managing Multiple Frames
  8. Dynamic Forms
  9. Managing Events
  10. Page Navigation Techniques
  11. Managing Style Sheets
  12. Visual Effects for Stationary Content
  13. Positioning HTML Elements
  14. Creating Dynamic Content
  15. Dynamic Content Applications

These chapters are used mainly to facilitate the look up of a particular recipe, as each recipe exists and is explained independent of one another. This is consistent with the style of most Cookbooks, and it seems to work well here as well.

If you're a complete novice, you may be wondering at this point the distinction between JavaScript and DHTML. The book doesn't make a conscious effort to differentiate between the two when discussing recipes, and for a good reason. DHTML is basically JavaScript, though the latter draws in your page's HTML and often CSS as well to create something more encompassing.

Ok, on to what's important now -- the recipes themselves. I was expecting a series of flashy, long and tacky JavaScripts you can find in the source of every other site on the web these days, padded with some nonsense accolade like "the web cannot survive without them." Such scripts are mostly counterproductive, and do little to educate a JavaScript learner, let alone a master like myself (hur hur). To my delight, things were the complete opposite. The recipes in JavaScript & DHTML Cookbook are extremely practical, well thought out, and even educational. Discussions like Calculating the Number of Days Between Two Dates, Simulating a Hash Table for Fast Array Lookup, and Transforming XML Data into HTML Tables not only are very useful to the cut-and-paster, they teach even seasoned JavaScripters a thing or two about the language.

The only minor compliant I have with this book is the length of some of the script examples -- they span a little too long to follow effortlessly. The longest script I can recall in the book runs about 5 pages in length. Fortunately, such recipes are few and far in between, and 95 percent of the recipes are extremely short in length and packed with useful information and techniques. For the long scripts, it's easy to see that they exist out of necessity to create and show a fully functional script rather than just to pad pages.

In summary, I walk away from reading JavaScript & DHTML Cookbook with many new tricks up my sleeve, something I had not expected at all. Some good resources online that compliment the reading would be DevEdge's JavaScript Reference and JavaScriptKit's JavaScript tutorials."

You can purchase JavaScript and DHTML Cookbook from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
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JavaScript and DHTML Cookbook

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  • You know the world has changed... (Score:5, Funny)

    by daves ( 23318 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @12:03PM (#6785238) Journal
    ... when a 500 page book is described as "compact".

  • for those too cheap to buy a book (Score:5, Informative)

    by IFF123 ( 679162 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @12:03PM (#6785239)
    try this site instead:
    http://www.irt.org/index.htm
    if you need more help, you should try marketing instead.

  • DHTML and javascript (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ximor_iksivich ( 666068 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @12:04PM (#6785245)
    DHTML and javascript make an excellent combination for displaying animated content.. but the question of browser incompatibilty still remains... What we need is a book for making browsers compatible first then have lots of books on the ways to use them... seems logical to me anyway :-)
    • You're right on that front. Quite a few people use Microsoft FrontPage for building their webpages.
      DHTML support is not that great and even then its a bit cumbersome to use than say Dreamweaver.

      Frontpage is good for those building simple websites without much user configuration. DHTML usually does not figure in it.

    • Re:DHTML and javascript (Score:5, Informative)

      by pjotrb123 ( 685993 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @12:11PM (#6785332)
      Try cross-browser.com [cross-browser.com] for two cross-browser DHTML Javascript libraries.
      One is complete and big, the other is more of a featherweight and a bit less powerful of course.

    • Re:DHTML and javascript (Score:5, Interesting)

      by DrSkwid ( 118965 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @12:18PM (#6785400) Journal
      javascript is polymorphic

      you can code round different browsers by implementing a common API for your applications and let your library do the platform specific work

      I've done plenty of intranet javascipt applications, one of which is an HTML email composer.
      It uses DHTML to drag and resize the html elements around. It works like Quark, you draw a square and type in the text.

      • Re:DHTML and javascript (Score:3, Insightful)

        by On Lawn ( 1073 )
        I don't think "can" has been the question as much as its so plain annoying. I'm sure plenty of people could provide commentary on the issues of portability of code in browsers vs OS's and computers.

        Language portability happens in C all the time, and is managed through a number of very difficult tools. In Javascript, it does it in runtime, figuring out its environment and adjusting which routines will run dynamically. In Java the environment provides the portability.

        Portability is a worth-while goal in tha
      • Do you have an example of how you implement the polymorpism? Do you have anything cleaner than if (Internet Explorer)... if (Netscape)... etc?
        • This isn't quite a demonstration of polymorphism at work but it does show one approach to cross platform design

          <div style="width:500px; background:red;" id="red">Red</div>

          <div style="width:500px; background:green;" id="green">Green</div>

          <script language="javascript">
          // this will hold a function
          var mousehandling;

          // my class
          function Point(x, y) {
          this.x = x
          this.y = y
          }

          switch(navigator.appName) {
          // lame browser detection
          case "Microsoft Internet Explorer" :
          mousehandlin

    • Re:DHTML and javascript compatibility (Score:4, Informative)

      by borkus ( 179118 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @12:35PM (#6785543) Homepage
      The book has a compatibility legend for each recipe; most of the recipes work with IE 4 and NN 4.

      DOM support has become widespread enough that you can easily create DHTML features on a page that will work for over 99% of your visitors. The worst thing so far has been some of the positioning properties; however, some of that is due to the surfeit of properties used by IE.
    • "The Web Programmers Cross Reference" from No Starch Press is a complete reference guide to HTML, Javascript, CSS, and DHTML. When I say complete, I mean every HTML tag with browser version compatibility, every Javascript function, every CSS directive, and a bunch of stuff on MS-isms for web programming (kind of necessary, even if a tad evil) Check nostarch.com [nostarch.com] for more information - should be taking pre-orders next month or so, and the final printed version should be in stores by December.

      (yes, I am a No

    • DHTML and javascript make an excellent combination for displaying animated content.. but the question of browser incompatibilty still remains...

      If you can deprecate Netscape 4 and below and IE 5.0 and below (5.5 is generally OK), the incompatibilities really aren't all that bad. Newer versions of the "big two" are mostly standard-compliant, or at least compatible with each other.

      There are a few annoyances such as different levels of support for CSS, but these are nothing compared to the nightmare that

  • Who needs a book? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by calebtucker ( 691882 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @12:04PM (#6785248) Journal
    Seriously, who needs a javascript and dhtml book with all of the references on the net? Just give me a nice object reference for DHTML (*cough*, MSDN isn't bad.. i hate to admit it) and DevGuru's JavaScript reference.

    • Re:Who needs a book? (Score:3, Informative)

      by greenhide ( 597777 )
      I've used Dynamic HTML, another O'Reilly book, for some time now.

      It's a great reference, and makes it easy to look up all of the various HTML elements, CSS styles, and JavaScript objects.

      The advantage is that it's all in one place, and I can read it while it's lying on my desk, and have a text editor window open to type in my code. It's a pain to constantly switch back and forth between two windows when you're in an intensive coding session -- well, it is for me at least.

      It's like a dictionary. You can u
    • From the summary:

      Ok, so I was reluctant when I first picked up and started reading ... After all, I'm fairly proficient in JavaScript already ... and if I needed some cool DHTML scripts, I could just visit a good site ... However, the book managed to both surprise and impress me, a great combination to have in a book.

      Emphasis mine.
    • "Why use a book when x,y,z is available for free on the Internet?

      Well, crap. Why *ever* use a book when the information is already available in electronic form? Why read Tom Sawyer in book form when you can read it on your Palm Zire? Why read the printed newspaper at the coffee shop, when it would be far more efficient to bring your laptop, look for a Wi-Fi network, and read the news online?

      My point is that sometimes online sources are hampered by the medium. The book for all its faults is a wonderful inf

  • $4 less and free shipping! (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Amazon has it for $4 less and with free shipping [amazon.com]
    • Get it at bookpool.com [bookpool.com] for $24.50 and don't give business to the AC.
      • Ha ha...See postings above to see irony in the -1 offtopic mod. The guy who gives the amazon post is modded as informative -- gee, who woulda thunk it? "Amazon is selling an O'Reilly book", now that's informative -- and trying to make money off of it too. This last post, which offers a much better retailer (in terms of price), is modded as offtopic. My suggestion? Don't mod these kinds of comments at all. Everyone knows that you can buy books at online retailers.

        At least, don't mod them until they create t
      • Damn, beat me to that one.
    • I can karma whore too :-)

      Try Books-A-Million [booksamillion.com] and avoid supporting Amazon patents and non-privacy.
    • Bookpool [bookpool.com] has it for less than Amazon, BN, or booksamillion. They have free shipping if your order is $40 or more, so this may or may not be a better deal.
  • ...and the DynamicDrive site gets so slow you might think it's being slashdotted.
    Just wondering if you ever get any nice scripts from that site...

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @12:06PM (#6785276)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • If you want a little demo of what you can do with dhtml, check out "Hau Strange" [netzgoetter.de] by the demoscene group Haujobb [haujobb.org]

    Think you need modplug to get the music.

    • Gah... I had dhtml copper bars in 1998 :)

      the wayback machine knows all [archive.org] of course it's ie only (hey it was 98, NS sucked balls), and the images are long dead as net-effect has been out of business for years.... but there my trumpet is blown :-)

      • Nice.. Do you happen to know where I can find more dhtml "scene" related stuff?

        I stumbled upon a nice dhtml 4 kb compo site some time ago (with everything from fractal zommers to raycasting engines), but I can't seem to find it with Google now.

        • You might be thinking about The 5K [the5k.org] a competition to do as much functionality as you can into 5 Kilobytes worth of HTML and Script. Some interesting, creative stuff in there, and a nice lesson in obfustication.

          Although I believe there is a "most obfusticated" C competition out there, too.
        • Try clicking "Texture Mapping [www.suxx.dk]" on this link (The other examples are nice too).

          I've got a website I wrote, some time ago, which is written 99% in JavaScript (and DOM). See it here: Urgent [urgent.dk].

          If anyone's interested, there's the link to my JavaScript TreeView [sf.net] (Open Source!) in my signature, so go ahead and try it out</advertising>. ;-)

  • JavaScript in a Linux Documentation Project (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The Linux Documentation Project (TLDP) [tldp.org] is developing a prototyping authoring tool that is using a fair bit of JavaScript. If anyone is interested in volunteering/taking over development, you could check out the The LDP HOWTO GENERATOR [nyx.net].

    Even just a tips or suggestion to the author would be useful; TLDP is always looking for inputs to the projects and this is a recent project.

  • In the future everyone will have the INTERNET (Score:3, Funny)

    by nfotxn ( 519715 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @12:17PM (#6785395) Journal
    DHTML? I'm having flashbacks to 1996.

  • "Often with CSS"? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SvendTofte ( 686053 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @12:19PM (#6785412)
    "often with CSS"? That doesn't even make sense.

    DHTML was coined, as the combination of HTML providing structure, CSS providing presentation, and JavaScript providing logic.

    If you just use HTML and JavaScript, you're just doing a plain HTML page with logic (like form checkers).

    I would also note, that JavaScript object are already hash tables, so "simulating hash arrays" isn't really needed (or I fail to see where it becomes relevant?)

    object["myprop"] == object.myprop

    There's only one book JavaScript programmers need, the rhino book. It's all in that. Everything else is just experience, and cannot be conveyed by a bunch of scripts. Or if it can convey something, it's most likely because said reader didn't catch it in the Rhino book ;)
    • Is the thau! book from No Starch Press - Book of Javascript page [nostarch.com]. It's a great book and received great reviews.

  • A Fan of Goodman's Books (Score:5, Informative)

    by borkus ( 179118 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @12:23PM (#6785445) Homepage
    I got the first Dynamic HTML when it came out then bought the second edition and the JS/DHTML cookbook.

    The cookbook is great for newcomers to web development. It is based on common tasks, i.e. "Allowing Only Numbers (or Letters) in a Text Box". It then shows how to combine the HTML, CSS and Javascript to get carry out that task. I can't count how many times that a co-worker has asked me a Javascript question and I've shown them the answer straight out of that book. For programmers new to web development, the largest obstacle isn't HTML or Javascript syntax; it's how to put together those elements. I have yet to see a book that does it as clearly as the the JS and DHTML Cookbook. For someone starting out on their first web based projects, I'd strongly recommend DHTML - the Definitive Guide and the JS/DHTML cookbook as the best references for getting started.

  • Not JavaScript!!! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <namtabmiaka>> on Monday August 25, 2003 @12:32PM (#6785515) Homepage Journal
    Personally, I tend to dislike JavaScript. It has its uses, but JS programs quickly turn into huge messes that Anderson himself couldn't debug. Of course, most of these problems stem from the lack of engineering that goes into most Javascript code. If you define clear APIs (like any good engineer should) Javascript ends up being not half bad.

    BTW, can anyone spot the problem with this code:

    function myfunc1()
    {
    for(i=0; i<10; i++) myfunc2(i);
    }

    function myfunc2(value)
    {
    for(i=0; i<15; i++) //do something;
    }

    Here's a hint for you. "i" in myfunc1() is not what you expect it to be.
    • Well, if you're not going to declare 'i' as a local var of each function, you're asking for trouble. You shouldn't be too surprised to find it.
      • And how many "programmers" realize that problem? They don't see the need to define variables. Since Javascript simply lets them create variables willy-nilly, they spend hours banging their heads against the wall trying to figure out why code written in two minutes takes 30 hours to debug. By the time they "fix" it (i.e. randomly changing code), they probably still don't know what was broken. Thus my point of why I don't like Javascript.

    • What problem? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by djeaux ( 620938 )
      BTW, can anyone spot the problem with this code:

      Sure can. You redefine the variable i. Departing radically from /. convention, I actually pasted your code into my trusty text editor to see if there was some cool trick that I didn't notice just reading it & found that it behaved exactly as I expected:

      1. myfunc1() passes 0 (zero) to myfunc2() on the first iteration of the myfunc1 loop.
      2. myfunc2() then increments i stepwise to 14 whereupon it returns to myfunc1() & ends because 14 > 10.

      In fact

      • Are you trying to illustrate the sloppy code that happens because JavaScript is easy & free & a bunch of folks with no concept of good coding practice can just kludge away?

        Basically? Yes. The long answer is that you are never required to define your variables, thus producing the problem. You cannot run into this problem in C, because you'd have to define "i" first. If you're still using a global variable, then it's your own damn fault. It should be painfully obvious what the problem is in that ca
        • Again, with decent engineering of code, Javascript isn't half bad. The fact that it does absolutly nothing to encourage said engineering is a failure of the part of the language. (Especially given its namesake.)

          The same could be said for Perl, except that there is "use strict". And "use strict" always brings to mind the image of a leather-clad female software engineer threatening the coders with a whip & chain... Ok, ok, so I'm a pervert ;-)

          So, shall we tie up JavaScript kludgers & force them to

    • Re:Not JavaScript!!! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by SCHecklerX ( 229973 ) <greg@gksnetworks.com> on Monday August 25, 2003 @03:05PM (#6786984) Homepage
      My favorite javascriptism is using + as both a numerical addition and a string concatenator, which, of course, is all kinds of fun in a language where you don't type your variables:

      a = 1 + 4 would yield a = '14'. Irritating.


      • a = 1 + 4 would yield a = '14'. Irritating.

        Where (what browser) do you see that behaviour?

        With a straight assignment:
        a = 1 + 4;
        'a' should yield 5.

        If 'a' already contains string data and you append to it:
        a = "";
        a+= 1;
        a+= 4;
        then you'll end up with "14"

        Though, if you do:
        a = "";
        a+= 1+4;
        you'll end up with "5" because the numeric operation takes precedence over the assignment.

        Not sure if all browsers will behave this way, but the Moz/Firebird js console bears this out.

      • This entire sub-thread of I-hate's can be paraphrased as "I hate it because it's different from what I use every day."

        ...which says more about the poster than the language being discussed.

        • Actaully, I don't hate Javascript. I dislike it. Bit of a difference there. The reason why I dislike it is because of all the pitfalls *built-in* to the language. I named one, grandparent named another. There are tons more that will snag anyone who doesn't have knowledge of what goes on under the hood. How is your junior programmer supposed to know the difference between a string and a number? He just write some HTML/ColdFusion/JSP/ASP/Whatever and the results spit out the other end. He has no clue why 1+4
      • a=1+4 == 5
        a=1+'4' == '14'
        a=1+'4'*1 == 5

        Just *1 your strings ... its less characters and faster execution than new Number() or parseInt(foo,10);
    • yeah, non-initiated variables get given a global scope.

      use var to give it a local scope.
      ie. for(var i=0; i10; i++) myfunc2(i);

    • Any boob looking at their code should see that they're never using the parameter passed into myfunc2, though. If you change "value" to "i", (function myfunc2(i))then you get a localized version of i and this code does exactly what it was "supposed" to do - run though 0-14 10 times.

      This isn't something a competent programmer should have a problem with anyway, though several of those out there using JS are far from what I'd call "competent programmers"....
      • We're assuming that we do something with "value" in the area where it says "//do something". The case I've given here is actually quite common since programmers are used to using "i", "j", and "k" for loop counters. A programmer will *think* he's fine by using "i" in another function, but he's actually screwing up his program beyond beiief.

        If JavaScript actually required the programmer to define his variables, this problem would go away. The only time being able to create variables out of the blue worked,

  • Example code, for free (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 25, 2003 @12:35PM (#6785547)
    BTW, you can download example code for this book from here [oreilly.com].

  • What IS DHTML anyway? (Score:3, Informative)

    by aflat362 ( 601039 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @12:37PM (#6785556) Homepage
    I was under the impression that DHTML was just a buzzword. And that when anyone was talking about DHTML what they really meant was HTML pages with JavaScript or VBScript in them to make them do more than static HTML. Am I correct? If I'm wrong - than what the hell is DHTML?
    • What DHTML is not

      While Dynamic HTML can be simplified as JavaScript + HTML + CSS, I can think of many instances where these technologies are use and it still can't be considered dynamic HTML.

      Ex: Using JavaScript to validate a form is not DHTML.

      DHTML - My definition

      Dynamic HTML - Any HTML content that is either dynamically created or altered by a client-side scripting language such as JavaScipt or VBScript.

      To put it simply: If you're changing the page layout on the fly, then you're doing Dynamic H
      • Thank you. You've confirmed my suspicions. What is the POINT of calling something "Dynamic HTML" if all it is is a regular damn HTML page with some JavaScript and CSS? I agree with your opinion that simple javascript in a page doesn't make a page Dynamic. However, I also think that no matter WHAT you do with JavaScript or Style sheets you aren't doing any DHTML at all. You are doing JavaScript and Style Sheets! Dynamic HTML. . . Bah!
        • I don't you followed my definition:

          Dynamic HTML is a real and valid term which covers:

          1. Dynamically creating HTML on the client.
          2. Dynamically altering HTML on the client.

          You *ARE* doing Dynamic HTML if you are using JavaScript and CSS to *DYNAMICALLY* create/alter HTML on a page.

          You *AREN'T* doing Dynamic HTML if your use of JavaScript and CSS neither creates or alters the HTML on a page.

          In conclusion: Dynamic HTML is the process of dynamically creating and altering HTML in a web page.

          (Sorr
    • If I'm wrong - than what the hell is DHTML?

      It's like Margaritaville. Somebody once asked Jimmy Buffett where the hell Margaritaville was & he said, "It's wherever you want it to be."

      Some folks say DHTML is JavaScript-enhanced HTML. Others like to throw in a pinch of Perl or PHP with their JavaScript & cook it up like gumbo. Some add a smidgen of Flash while they're at it. And then they complain because nobody's browser will run it.

      DOM detection is such a P.I.T.A. (and I don't mean middle easte

  • Is there work for a pure DHTML programmer? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by John Seminal ( 698722 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @12:46PM (#6785633) Journal
    I do not think there is work for someone to do DHTML programming. Everything I have seen is going to servlets. Nobody is putting up static pages (No matter what anyone says, JavaScript does not make a page dynamic). Why pay someone 20 dollars an hour in today's market when there are hardcore programmers unemployed, who can write Java servlets and JSP?
    • I have a page that wants to disagree with you, my Nekketsu Street Basket [rahga.com] page, with the Javascript-based password generator at the bottom of the page. In this particular case, using static Javascript to create dynamic content on the fly is far superior to using any type of webserver-based technologies, especially when you consider the processing and bandwidth overhead. The only problem comes with browsers that do not support Javascript... Opera, IE, and Mozilla can supports it with no problems, that leaves
    • Maybe because static pages load much faster than pages with server-side scripting/programming, given the same hardware. You can get millions of hits a day on static pages with minimal hardware. Start using mysql with jsp, php, or whatever, and you have to get some decent machines.
    • there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your programming platform of choice. having seen the horrible excuses for UI that most 'hardcore' programmers try to pass off on unsuspecting victims i can understand why they can't compete with people who are skilled in providing elegant interfaces and interactivity to the end user. especially so if they can't understand what works best client side and what belongs server side. plenty of room for specialists out there, though you aren't goin
    • yes probably not for a pure dhtml programmer, but for a programer that uses that uses dhtml/javascript and jsp/servlets to create lighter weight and more interactive pages and load page sections on the fly so you don't have to update the full page, and do xml/xslt trasformations to create dhtml widgets from the javascript soap request you just fired off and on and on there is work, trust me i know.

      like i keep telling and proving to my boss, i can save a ton of logic and bandwidth on the backend by makeing
    • You are partially correct. The real dynamic content and interactivity comes from a combonation of DHTML and server side coding (eg: perl, php, asp, etc...) I have several pieces of work where the dynamic comes from php or perl and the interactivity assist comes from javascript created/modified by the php/perl. Need to dynamically repopulate select boxes? Create the various javascript arrays in php and then use on tags to load/unload the arrays.

      To do this kind of work requires a good understanding of DH
    • I've found that there is a growing demand for web designers who can use DHTML as an alternative to Flash, especially considering most of today's web-browsers have become considerable more compatible in the last few years.

      You should also note the increasing growing market of selling JavaScript components like Dynamic Menus, Calendar Pickers, Tables, and other goodies.

      Obviously DHTML is only half the solution for most problems, so we find that most DHTML programmers usually use DHTML in conjunction
    • There are some things that are just plain clunky to do server-side. Maybe programmers don't understand the value of client-side scripting--obviously you don't, but users (as long as you have a noscript alternative) and sysadmins certinaly do.

  • I bought this book, thinking that if it is anywhere near as useful as the Perl Cookbook, then I would be getting my US $39.95 worth. I was very disappointed with the book and would not recommend it to JavaScript/DHTML experts.

    The problem with this book is that is almost completely tailored to the person who hasn't much experience with these technologies. For example, the section on the String object gives newbie tips like:

    Use += to concatenate strings.

    (Whoo-hoo! Thank you Danny Goodman, where c

  • To the best of my knowledge Javascript is not a standard language approved by a "standards" making body (e.g. ANSI, ISO, etc.). It will also routinely crash or cause errors in Netscape browsers and/or suck up CPU time better devoted to distributed computing projects. The reasonable thing for an intelligent user to do is to browse the web with Javascript disabled. Who knows what security holes may lurk in Javascript code? More information on why not to use Javascript and how to write code that makes the
    • Sorry to contradict you; javascript is at this moment merely a common name for the ECMAScript implementations. ECMA (http://www.ecma-international.org/) is an organisation for standardisation simular to ISO. Javascript implementations (currently JScript5.5 in IE6 and JavaScript 1.5 in Netscape/Mozilla as wel as Actionscript for Flash) are all based upon the ECMAScript V3 standard. The page you are referring to is obviously outdated (P100? NS4.x?); it is true that in the past there was no real standard for
  • ...how much did they pay you to write this review ? I mean, it's probably a good book, but who needs a book on JavaScript ? There's plenty of info on the web; I can't think of _any_ book that's worth buying when it comes to mainstream software development. Dead tree format study guides are so 20th-century...
  • So after reading this book, would I be able to do something like this [tweakers.net] ?

    DHTML might be a good altervative to Java in the future for some web based interfaces, considering that a decent version of Java does not come with Internet Explorer anymore.
    • Probably not; it took me 3 years to get to the point of making this, and basically browsers aren't quite ready for it. Requirements are high, and there are bugs in certain browsers (Linux version of Mozilla for instance, and Safari/Konqueror) that make it unplayable (I'm trying to find work-arounds though). DHTML at this level is just maturing, and this is just an example of taking it to the edge (and then the Lemmings fall over :) )

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