January 2007 Archives

JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, 5th edition
David Flanagan
O'Reilly Media, 2006
ISBN-13: 978-0-596-10199-2
US$ 49.99

Rating: 5/5 (excellent)

The 5th edition of the one and only bible of JavaScript, by the language guru David Flanagan, is not a surprise, but a beautiful confirmation. The 4th edition, which I've been using until a few days ago, was (and is) an invaluable reference even though it started to become a bit outdated. The new version is even more "biblic" than before, featuring nearly 1000 pages of in-depth explanation and reference. New sections include Ajax (of course, it's the cool thing of these years!), client side graphics (SVG, VML and <canvas>), JavaScript namespaces and communication with Flash and other embedded media.

The book can be divided in 2 sections: the guide - which occupies about 600 pages - and the reference which accounts for the remaining 400. Browsing the index of the book, it turns out the the parts are actually 4: for this article, I however merged the first two (the guide) and the last two (the reference).

The first section covers every JavaScript aspect, with a detailed explanation of the language and almost everything than can be achieved using it. What is being actually taught are the "roots" of all the JavaScript features: to build the complex things, you need to work on those roots (or to grab more high-level tutorials somewhere else). However, this book has everything you need, as you can figure the rest out!

The second section is the reason why every web coder will want to have this book on his desk everyday. The reference is detailed, accurate, thorough and very easy to browse. As I wrote above, it's divided in 2 parts: Core Language and Client-side JavaScript.

All in all, what can be said about this book? Even though I'm not fond of client side programming and prefer to script on the server, this is one of the few books for which I can really find nothing bad to say. It's well written, simple to understand, entertaining. There's also the Italian translation: there's the previous edition on the shelves in Italy at present time, but we'll hopefully see this new fantastic edition translated soon.

Oh well, after the taxation news at least there's something positive happening in my country: we're back to nuclear power, which means we might depend less on countries like France, Switzerland and (especially) Russia for energy in the near future, while using one of the safest and cleanest (no CO2...) means currently available to produce it.

There's still a downside of course: fission reactors still can't be built in Italy (since 1987, when we wickedly canceled the nuclear plan on the wake of Chernobyl disaster), so Enel (our primary energy company) will operate in the nearby Slovenia - and that will cost something. It's a first step anyway...

Oh well, starting Jan 2007 (now) Italian companies can't have fuel and car as a company expenditure, which means that that all of this has now to be paid in full, so it's becoming quite expensive also to use a car for work.

All of this happens while our clown premier goes on stating he's making Italy run again... but how? Wiping out benefits and abusing of indirect taxation (not to mention direct taxation)!!! Is it time to think about moving out of Italy?