Reviews of two new books from O'Reilly about HTML and JavaScript
- modified:
- reading: 4 minutes
I got two new books from O’Reilly about Html 5 and JavaScript (ECMAScript 5):
- Mark Pilgrim - Html 5: Up and Running
- Shelley Powers – JavaScript Cookbook
Both of these books are published by O’Reilly. First book with mark Google Press.
Mark Pilgrim - Html 5: Up and Running
First book was Html 5: Up and Running. Mark Piligrim is author of this book. He is popular blogger and books writer. Unfortunately I had never read his books. He is good writer. Just want to note that this book was written well: easy to read, not like a technical book, looks like you sat down to read a fascinating detective story. This is because book has a lot of historical information about history of html 5, about history of codecs for html 5, etc. Honestly I like it more than simple boring technical literature. You can say that this is format for dummies, but as I said, I like it.
Book has 10 chapters and has more than 200 pages. I read it in one breath. Each chapter (except first two chapters) is a guide “how to develop and deploy some new feature of Html 5”. Want to note that this book not for learning html from beginning, you should know basics of html. This book for developers/designers who have experience of web-developing and who want to learn which of new html 5 features you can use today at your web sites. Each chapter has a lot of books/articles references for if you want to learn more about describable feature. Each describable feature has table about browser’s support. All is true, even IE9 present in these tables. So I can say that you should read this book today while all information is actual.
Small minus of the book is each chapter has a lot of information, which really not necessary and which are not for web-developers. For example: one of chapter has guide how to use video and audio tags at your site. You will read about history of codecs, which are using in browsers for these tags, history of these tags. Also you will read about how to place these tags at your pages that all browsers can parse them. Next you will find pages about how to convert your videos in right formats, with which programs, and what arguments you should use. In one side you can say that author did a lot of work and he gave us fully guide how to use these tags, but in other side I just look through these pages.
I want to suggest this book for all designers, web-developers and more than for high school teachers. I think that if you are web-developer team – you should have this book.
At official book site you will find example of one chapters of this book. The book is modified version of DIVE INTO HTML5 by MARK PILGRIM, so if you can’t get this book you can find a lot of information at this site.
Shelley Powers – JavaScript Cookbook
First sentence of this book starts from “I wrote my first book on JavaScript 15 years ago…”. I think this is weighty argument why you should look at this book. Author of this book also popular blogger and books writer. The book was written with a view ECMAScript 5 and Html 5. This is why you will find at this book information about SVG, WebGL 3D, information about how to work with local storage, with audio and video elements and many others. The book has 21 chapters. First half of chapters is a basics of JavaScript like working with strings, with regex, how to create your special types. Second half of chapters – integration with browsers.
Each chapters has a list of frequent problems with answers and lengthy discussion, why this solution is better, what will be if you change a little this task, etc. The books has practically all the standard questions: how to debug JS scripts, how to write tests for JS scripts, and of course: how to create tabs, and how accordion with JavaScript. Books has chapter about JavaScript’s frameworks, and of course you will find there information about jQuery. Also you will find how to create your own library, where to start and then where to keep it.
This book is not a manual of JavaScript, but it can be. If you are teacher in university, and you are lecturing web-developing or JavaScript, you can teach at first day basics of JavaScript. And then you can get each chapter for each day, set goals, describe the solution. It seems to me that such training will be much more useful.
It was my first book of Cookbook series. Looks like they are useful reference books. But you should read all book if your want to use it like a reference book, because you should know which goals this book solves and which chapter has this solution.
Conclusion
I read these books and more than I moved my site to Html 5 
Both books recommend to have at home library. Excellent reference books.