Responding to reader feedback, the author has thoroughly revamped the book with more step-by-step coverage of JavaScript basics, an exclusive focus on Internet Explorer, and many complete sample scripts

Updated to cover JavaScript 1.5, the latest release of this popular Web scripting language

Using lots of examples, including a sample working Web site, the book shows how to create dynamic and interactive pages, build entire sites, and automate pages

• Responding to reader feedback, the author has thoroughly revamped the book with more step-by-step coverage of JavaScript basics, an exclusive focus on Internet Explorer, and many complete sample scripts
• Updated to cover JavaScript 1.5, the latest release of this popular Web scripting language
• Using lots of examples, including a sample working Web site, the book shows how to create dynamic and interactive pages, build entire sites, and automate pages

• Responding to reader feedback, the author has thoroughly revamped the book with more step-by-step coverage of JavaScript basics, an exclusive focus on Internet Explorer, and many complete sample scripts
• Updated to cover JavaScript 1.5, the latest release of this popular Web scripting language
• Using lots of examples, including a sample working Web site, the book shows how to create dynamic and interactive pages, build entire sites, and automate pages

Now with more about JavaScript for Internet Explorer

Here’s the secret to building dynamic Web pages that get your visitors involved

Want the script for cool Web pages? With this handy guide by your side, it’s easy to follow! Completely revised, this edition gives you all the JavaScript basics as well as step-by-step instructions for getting your scripts onto the Web. Before you know it, you could be building interactive Web sites for fun — or profit!

Discover how to

• Write, test, and debug JavaScript scripts
• Detect a user’s browser
• Format and display times and dates
• Store information with cookies
• Create hot buttons, clickable images, mouse rollovers, and more

All this on the bonus CD-ROM

• All sample code listings covered in the book
• Trial versions of Web Weaver®, and Dreamweaver® MX 2004, including HomeSite®
• SmartMenus DHTML, plus other scripts and examples you can use

Please see the CD-ROM appendix for details and complete system requirements.

Responding to reader feedback, the author has thoroughly revamped the book with more step-by-step coverage of JavaScript basics, an exclusive focus on Internet Explorer, and many complete sample scripts Updated to cover JavaScript 1.5, the latest release of this popular Web scripting language Using lots of examples, including a sample working Web site, the book shows how to create dynamic and interactive pages, build entire sites, and automate pages

• Responding to reader feedback, the author has thoroughly revamped the book with more step-by-step coverage of JavaScript basics, an exclusive focus on Internet Explorer, and many complete sample scripts
• Updated to cover JavaScript 1.5, the latest release of this popular Web scripting language
• Using lots of examples, including a sample working Web site, the book shows how to create dynamic and interactive pages, build entire sites, and automate pages

Reads like scrap notes slapped together
This book reads like it was slapped together from a small handful of quick notes. Actually, I would think someone could make better notes than that. The disc does not contain the example codes the book says it does. It’s a rather expensive way to waste your time in an attempt to learn something. The explanations are weak and much too brief for a beginner or even someone with programming experience. I thought it would be a fun way to get started before I moved on to more advanced books, but it is incomprehensible and a great frustration to read. Buyer beware, and notice how poorly this book has been rated.

Not up to the reputation of the collection
Javascript for dummies, by Emily Van der Veer, is not up to the reputation of clarity, simplicity and usefulness of the books in the "For Dummies" collection. The explanations of the basic concepts of the language (primary datatypes, objects, arrays, functions, properties, methods, etc.) are garbled and confusing. The examples are badly selected, they don’t go step by step, they mix trite and complex elements, and do not really explain things. This book will delay by several years, as it did for me, your understanding of Javascript. I finally understood and began to be able to use the language after having read "Javascript, the definitive guide" by David Flanagan.

Good intro book!
This book is good for a quick introduction to JavaScript. There’s lots of general tricks and techniques, plenty of ideas, and code snippets to reuse (on the CD). However, the descriptions of HOW the code worked I found lacking. There were various details about exactly WHAT the Js interpreter was doing to parse the code. The book left me feeling that I had lots of great ideas, but that when I sat down to apply them and make something original--there’d be lots of bugs based on details that I wasn’t told about. Good starter, good reference--definitely not "text-book" quality--but it was fun to play with.

There are definitely better books out there.
I’ve been learning and using JavaScript for quite some time, and of all of the books I’ve used, this one has by far been the worst. The examples that the author uses are not very helpful, and often concepts are poorly explained. A lot of the code you will need to write will require you to creatively use the skills you’ve acquired to solve a problem; this book, however, likely won’t equip you with the tools you need to be able to do this. If you’re looking for a good place to start, I’d start with java script: The Definitive Guide by David Flanagan. It does have flaws of its own, but it is a good place to start.

I’ll Stick With the Moron’s Edition
I have several complaints about this book. Firstly, the author assumes you don’t even know how to turn on a computer. Who would be bothering to learn about JavaScript if they don’t even know how to power up a PC? Come on! The author should spend less time detailing the basic boot up process on the PC and how to open your text editor, and more time explaining the way JavaScript works, and how it depends on the browser that the person visiting your website is using to work correctly. Also, a lot of the examples given in this book don’t work. (Unfortunately, I’ve found that is common with JavaScript books.) Also, the book seems to waste a lot of time going on and on about useless nonsense. I know it’s a "dummies" book, but this book expects its readers to truly be morons.

I’m only thankful I purchased the book at a discount bookstore for only $3.99.

A big disappointment
I bought this book with a basic knowledge of HTML but very little knowledge of Javascript. Being a fan of other "Dummies" books, I thought this would be a great place to start learning Javascript. Do I feel ripped off! In the Introduction, the author states the book is for those with little or no knowledge of Javascript, which I don’t think at all to be the case. She claims to use "real-world examples", most of which I find to be fairly abstract and very poorly explained. She also claims that all the sample codes are contained on the CD-ROM, which is a flat out lie, the applications are similar but the coding is very different from the book, which combined with the author’s hard-to-follow explanations leaves the reader very confused and frustrated. On top of all that there are several typos, one of which refering to Microsoft Windows as a word processing program, and poorly written HTML, missing several tags. The author definately knows Javascript, but how good she is as an author is questionable.

Missed it
Not to sound trite, but this book was written by Dummies.... the examples are not true to life, there are too many mistakes and the explaination of JavaScript is too complicated and overblown.

Decent reference, but definitely not for "dummies"
My general rule of the thumb is to avoid books that blatantly insult my intelligence in the title. However, I decided to give "JavaScript for Dummies" a try.

The thought of teaching an object oriented programming language to a "dummie" is laughable. However, JS for Dum-Dums certainly tries, but Ms.Vander Veer needs some help in the "dummies" part. Much of what the book is based on assumes that you understand programming terms (parsing, methods, global variables, the purpose of curly braces } ).The book itself starts off good, but it just doesn’t pull through. It introduces everything you’ll need to write good *SIMPLE* JavaScripts. There’s nothing really to say that hasn’t been said in previous reviews. Despite what you may have heard, you need more than just HTML under your belt to get the full benefit from this book. Repeat, knowing HTML is not enough.

Many "advanced topics" are left out in the cold, such as JavaScript’s excellent implementation of regular expressions, arrays and zIndexing for dynamic effects. The explanation of Netscape and IE DOMs are shoddy at best, and the object-method reference in the back of the book needs to go back in the oven for a few more minutes. Throughout the book, you’ll learn a handful of principles and see them applied through "real life" scripts. Often these examples are cute "look-what-I-can-do" scripts circa 1996. This, of course, is utterly useless. No one wants to know how to construct a poem generator in JS, save for maybe the weekend hobbyist.

Ms.Vander-Veer’s style of "nevermind if you don’t understand / the example will reveal all" is cumbersome. Often, the example scripts are archane and overcomplicated. This will only further frustrate the newbie. Ms.Vander-Veer’s literary atrocity is the case of a weekend hobbyist gone bad. Whoever told her to write a book on something she obviously has little experience in should be shot. While she explains that this is not a book for hardcore programmers (who should check out O’reilly’s "JavaScript : The Definitive Guide") she does say that you will be writing professional-grade scripts by the end of the book. Only covering a handful of the avalaible objects to JScript developers only adds insult to injury.

Yet, this book still has some redeeming qualities. If you’ve got some experience with BASIC or another relatively simple programming language, this book might be of some use as an intro. However, it is supremely insufficient as a stand-alone reference and will have you scrambling to online references frequently.

In the end, "JavaScript For Dummies" is a book that chokes on it’s own mediocrity, which is glaringly obvious from the hind-side perspective of a semi-seasoned JavaScript programmmer.

I should have checked Amazon first....
I just purchased "JavaScript for Dummies" and immediately became lost after Chapter 2. The author is horrible at teaching this language. Fortunately, I have a friend who is a VBasic programmer and helped me through parts of it. But I give up - I’m going to search for another JavaScript manual. This one is the pits and I am very, very, VERY disappointed that "For Dummies" even published this book! I have a deep urge to slap the tar out of the author.