Learning JavaScript

Assumptions and Approach

As stated earlier, this book assumes you have experience with (X)HTML and CSS, as well as a general understanding of how web applications work. Programming experience isn’t necessary, but the book covers all aspects of JavaScript, some of which are relatively sophisticated. Though the heavier pieces are few, you will need to understand JavaScript enough to work with the newer Ajax libraries.

The book is broken into four sections:

Chapters 1 through 3 provide an introduction to the structure of a JavaScript application, including the simple data types supported in the language, as well as the basic statements and control structures. These establish a baseline of understanding of the language for the sections that follow.

Chapters 4 through 8 introduce the main JavaScript objects, including the all-important function, script access for web-page forms, event handling, scripting security, and working with cookies. Combined, these topics comprise the core of JavaScript, and with these chapters, you can validate form elements, set and retrieve cookies, capture and provide functionality for events, and even create JavaScript libraries. The functionality covered in these chapters has been basic to JavaScript for 10 years, and will remain so for at least another 10.

Chapters 9 through 11 delve into the more sophisticated aspects of web-page development. These chapters cover the Browser Object Model and the newer Document Object Model, and show how you can create your ...