Learning JQuery: Better Interaction Design and Web Development with Simple Javascript Techniques

First I will have to state, that this is my first and only book on the subject. Compared to most books I have read recently, this is far the most well written book: I hate books where the author doesn't take the time to narrow down his message to the reader. In this case the authors did a really good job. It isn't perfect, but they still did a very good job. If they made a more detailed index I would give this book 5 star and send a free copy to Bill Gates :-) - I'am a .Net freek.

Great book but... (2/2 people found this helpful)

This really is an excellent introduction to the subject. Very well written with loads of code examples. Nearly everything I've wanted to do has been covered somewhere in the book BUT the big problem is finding the information you need.
The index is truly VERY poor e.g several letters have only a single entry - L for example - many others have just a few entries. I could do with a soft copy of the book to search for things more easily. But don't let that put you off, the contents pages are good, and you can always scribble extra entries into the index as you find things!!

Very good, a must have for the jQuery beginner (6/6 people found this helpful)

Getting started with jQuery does not have to be daunting, this book will definitely help you get started, and show you key techniques to make your code efficient and feature rich.

The book is aimed at jQuery beginners, all it takes is a basic knowledge of HTML and CSS, and an understanding of the syntax of JavaScript; no jQuery experience (or any other framework for that matter) is needed or assumed. The book builds up to more advanced topics, but is still mainly aimed at beginners. However, saying that, I consider myself "intermediate" and I learnt a lot of new techniques from this book, and found some of the examples particularly useful.

In general, chapters are well documented and are also backed up by real world examples so you can see the various functions in action. For example, the Chapter entitled "Events - How to pull the trigger" starts off with an overview of jQuery's event handing functionality, then shows a real world example in the form of a style switcher. Chapters are finalised with a useful summary so you can check what you have learnt within the sections.

The book can be read from start to finish, as it is interesting, keeps you engaged, and gives information in a logical order. It contains many useful tips and functions, a lot of which I never knew about until reading the book.

The language used in the book is clear, concise and easy to understand. Tips and important points are highlighted and contain useful tidbits of information. I would have preferred more of these little tips to give the reader a broader understanding of the discussed topics, but they are currently adequate.

Code samples are well formatted and broken down, with added chunks of code emboldened. Live examples are also provided on the accomplying website, which is useful to get a look of what the code samples do. The examples themselves are of a high quality and useful in many real-world situations. Most of the examples are also shown along with screenshots to show you what the code is doing.

The screenshots themselves are a good quality but, being black and white, some are a little hard to understand what is being shown, and a few are slightly blurry. However, the examples themselves are available online so this is not such as big deal.

My only gripes with the book itself are that the headings could be better spaced out to improve legibility, and more importantly the book could have done with a better, bigger, index at the back; it's hard to find certain functions using the current index.

In conclusion, "Learning jQuery: Better Interaction Design and Web Development with Simple JavaScript Techniques" is a must have for any developer/designer looking to delve into JavaScript frameworks, and is a welcome addition to my reference book shelf. It beats the official jQuery manual hands down in my opinion, simply because everything is explained in much more detail.

Learning JQuery: Better Interaction Design and Web Development with Simple Javascript Techniques

Karl Swedberg, Jonathan Chaffer

Reader Reviews:

What you need on jquery! (1/1 people found this helpful)

Great book but... (2/2 people found this helpful)

Very good, a must have for the jQuery beginner (6/6 people found this helpful)

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