Book Review: JavaScript: Pocket Reference 3rd Edition

- by 
David Flanagan

ToC

Paperback: 280 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly Media; Third Edition edition (April 25, 2012)

ISBN-10: 1449316859 | ISBN-13: 978-1449316853

This is not a javascript pocket reference. It's a guide and an excerpt of a complete reference. Recommended as long as you know what you are buying. 

I was hoping I can use this book as a quick reference to anything Javascript, but I didn't quite get that. A pocket reference should be more about coverage than explanation. This book explains some topics at length and doesn't care about many other topics. From a pocket reference you would expect lots of tables and pictures and charts covering the various methods, properties of built in types

This isn't a match to the 2nd edition of the same book, though the authors mentioned that this is intentional. I personally prefer a reference to be a reference first. What this book aims to be instead is a collection of some good portions from the book "6th edition of JavaScript: The Definitive Guide" by the same author.

However I do feel that, what it explains, it explains well. I am an experienced programmer. So, I skipped the basics and started straight from Ch 9. I found the concepts well explained and the examples quite useful. You can rely on this book for understanding the concepts that it covers. The author, no doubt, is one of the finest and you will know if you read the Definitive Guide.

Disclosure
I reviewed this book for O'Reilly's Blogger Review Program

CodeProject

Book Review: Hello! HTML5 & CSS3

- by
Rob Crowther

ToC
Paperback: 560 pages
ISBN-10: 1935182897 | ISBN-13: 978-1935182894

This is undoubtedly one of the best books out there on HTML5 & CSS 3, if not the best. The authors have explained everything clearly and simply. You will just glance through a chapter casually, try out the code snippets real quick and you will be a master of the concepts of that chapter; this book makes it that easy.

Correspondence between HTML4 elements and their drawbacks and how HTML5 elements improve on them is explained nicely and in a detailed manner. It is so easy to get excited to see such nice things HTML 5 can do and so easily. But unfortunately, very few browsers support only selected features yet.

You certainly need to have some experience of previous versions of HTML and CSS to be able to make the most of this book. But no extensive practical knowledge is required.

And don't forget they have a nice companion website too.

Disclosure

• I am not affiliated to the authors or publishers of this book in any ways.
• I received the book from Manning Publications as part of the Manning Early Access Program (MEAP).