Murach's JavaScript and jQuery: Training & Reference

I teach this subject at two colleges and this is the first book that teaches the JavaScript and jQuery techniques used currently in the industry. Most JavaScript books on the market today were originally written in the 90's and spend too much time teaching outdated techniques then have added chapters at the end to say "Now forget that. Do it this way instead." The Murach books starts you on the right track from the get-go.It takes a step-by-step modular approach to introducing concepts that is very effective.Some of their example applications, however, do require more than a beginner's level of understanding of programming. If you want to learn JavaScript/jQuery from this book and do not have any prior programming experience, it is not hard to find simple examples of what they are teaching by using Google, etc. There are many JavaScript example sites available.Additionally, you should at least somewhat familiar with HTML5 and CSS3.The best book for this on the market today!

The first thing I tried with the book is the show/hide (accordion) which works great but not without a lot of work. You see, I am using Visual Studio 2010 with master pages and .Net does some interesting things with the html. For example, I used panels to contain areas of a form - that way I can enable/disable depending of the user's permissions. Well, .Net renders a panel control as a div and the JQuery code would hide these areas. Using Firebug I was able to see the actual control names so that I could use additional JQuery code to enable viewing of these panels. Quite frustrating actually.If you want to use the accordion feature and you're using Visual Studio, save yourself a lot of work and just use the Accordion control in the AjaxControlToolkit. I gave up on JQuery as long as I'm using Visual Studio.By the way - I have most all of Murach's books - love them!

I have a kind of love-hate relation with this book. I come from a Java/Swing background and need to transition to Web applications development. This of course requires HTML/CSS/JavaScript and JQuery. I bought several texts on the subject, but this is the one I stuck with and finished. I found this text quite good, I really love the Paired-pages concept where code is displayed on the right hand page, and the left hand page is text explaining the code. If you understand the code, you can skim/skip the explanation. While this leads to a much thicker text, I really enjoyed this style and prefer it to traditional technical books. The explanations are clear, the sample code actually works, and the fact that the authors include 3 versions of the sample code (Completed, skeleton for you to follow along with the text, and exercises at the end of the chapter) is a testament to the amount of thought/work that went into all aspects of producing this book. The authors do a very good job of covering the information, and one must read the sample code very closely as the authors don’t always call out every significant detail contained in the code. There are lots of nuggets to be discovered in the code and if you spend the time to really understand them, they greatly enhance the learning experience.My only complaint relates to the e-book (I bought both the dead tree version and the e-book). First off, you must download their proprietary e-book reader which I guess is an effort to protect their copyright. BUT, the reader is doesn’t work well with Mac’s. The paired pages are off by one page which results in the content on the left side being described by the previous page, and the content on the right hand side describing the content on the next page. Sounds trivial, but will drive you up the wall when reading.Overall, if you want to learn JavaScript/JQuery there are any number of books out there that can help, but I am quite impressed with this text and recommend it without reservation.

The quality level is something I've never experienced in a technical book like this. You get actual, helpful code snippets that 1) aren't part of some larger project that you'll never finish and 2) aren't aimed at solving some unrealistic problem you'll never encounter. I already have several books on PHP, but I'm thinking of ordering the PHP book anyway. The book's "bouquet" or binding smell has a kind of rustic campfire flavor to it, which may be a good fit for the outdated publisher photo, but I think some updates to the design and printing would be appropriate for the 2010s.

If you are a beginner to intermediate OR simply want a refresher in web development, then I highly recommend that you buy both books (JavaScript and JQuery + HTML5 and CSS3) at the same time because it is hard to talk about 1 of the 4 without referencing the other three languages. I bought the HTML5 and CSS3 book and took a 5-day class, and I found myself lost at times because I didn't understand the DOM. I wished I would have had the JavaScript and JQuery book earlier.

I had to buy this book for my Web Scripting class. I'm not totally unfamiliar with Javascript but I think that even for Novices the techniques in this book are quite sophisticated. I do not recommend this book as a beginner book. The college did not properly prepare me or the the other students to tackle the lessons in it. I don't think its structured well at all. I've always been of the opinion that if something is really difficult to learn, perhaps its not being taught that well. I feel anyone can learn anything but after reading this book and doing the lessons I feel like I just got done tying my shoes with boxing gloves on. No matter how good I get with this book. The guy without the boxing gloves on will kick my ass every time. I he never had to struggle as hard. I'm convinced the good reviews of this book are written by employees of the company that published this book or some of Murach's friends and relatives.