This book could easily serve as an introductory text to JavaScript. It offers enough depth for beginning JavaScript. Unfortunately, it does not delve enough into things like closure, which I believe is a very important language features. Furthermore, after the first or second reading, this book can handily serve as a reference book since part 3 and 4 of this book is reference to the classes, methods, and functions that are available in most JavaScript implementation.

This book not only assists first-time JavaScript programmers, but is an excellent reference for the more experienced developers. The examples are first-rate, and the reference sections are more comprehensive than any I've seen for this language. A MUST if you are a serious JavaScript professional.

I feel that this book is really a work of art. Besides agreeing with the last reviewer that it is not fair to consider this as a book for beginners and then judge it against that standard, I'd say that even though it is not for beginners, it does not make unnecessary arcane references, etc. It is very readable, at least for someone who's had a little experience working with JavaScript. I'd say it is not even a requirement to know object oriented principles (except for those sections perhaps). The author has not only made intelligible so many of the quirks of JavaScript, but provides code which is easy to follow yet extremely useful.

As far as examples, while for JavaScript fans, it might have been nice that the book expanded into 2000 pages instead of almost 1000 that it is now, the author does, I feel, what is necessary to both explain and demonstrate the concepts, and most often, does so by creating VERY useful utility functions and "classes". Just for the utility functions alone, the book would be worth it, really. There are only a very few places where the author suggests to look elsewhere, and besides my not minding doing so given how the book already saved me so much time, the cited references would have taken up unnecessary space if the author were to include them (and they definitely weren't essential).

The book is not outdated! Unlike other books, most of the book is rarely tied down to code that can become outdated as browsers change (like the changeable but helpful quirksmode.org ). Of course, as a big fan of this book, I hope the author will be persuaded to keep making new editions (and make a hardcover!). If you really want to learn the language, this is THE book.

This book was no doubt an immense labor of love--you can feel the author is human, actually teaching, and is not trying to show off with terminology while he still does explain a whole lot of necessary terms, etc., comments the code well, etc. As with art (not the strange modern variety either), I am flabbergasted some people cannot appreciate its beauty. In a complex JavaScript application, I am building, I am using no less than 7 of the utility classes he provided in the book.

For those studying JavaScript in depth / reading this book, I'd recommend one supplement to the book: the informative articles at http://javascript.crockford.com/ (and no doubt that author's book too). The articles on private members and classical vs. prototypal inheritance are one area I felt for which additional examples and use of terminology was helpful, and allowed me to appreciate and understand the chapter in the book on classes more fully (and utilize the approaches in its utility classes as well).

I bought this book after the helpful reviews found on amazon. This book is must have for reference, I've been using this for the past one month and its been great reference for me, a beginner.

This work is great as reference once one has acquired some skill, however it is not a good introduction for starters.

This book is perfect for anyone working on Web sites and uses JavaScript. From learning JavaScript to finding "recipes" on doing work, this book has it all. I cut a project from 10 hours to 1 hour with this book's help.

Its pretty lengthy and Javascript has developed some since this came out so I don't know how usefull it still is.

If you want to master Javascript and read just one book, then this must be the book you want to buy. Covers A-Z, detailed. If you are beginning on AJAX then this book is must read if you are Javascript beginner. 5 Stars.

When I first started programming javascript that lasted only a week or so (this was around 2000), the trouble I had with it was with the loose typing and the generality of the language. After reading the core portion of this book, I got to see the advantages and power of what I had problems with. It only took me 12 hours to go from literally clueless to semi-proficient. It also helped that I went through a whole semester of software design in C++. Another subtle part of the book that you do not need to have a semester of software design to learn the language, the author does well to explain the material well. If you are new to javascript, I'd probably get another book to go along with this.

Authoritative, very well written, very well structured, complete, a pleasure to read.
The intricacies of Javascirpt are very well explained, it might not be an easy read for the average script kiddie but if you want a book that thoroughly describes the language and its browser integration, events, dom, css handling ... look no further.

Excellent reference book -- well organized, especially the DOM reference section, and easy to understand. Clear explanation in the introductory chapters.

This book will take you from zero to hero! I read it cover-to-cover twice after having a year or so of javascript experience, and each time I learned a great deal. The reference section is indispensable too.

If you want to learn the language inside and out and start playing with the big boys, get this book.

This book is a fantastic reference. So many technical books typically live short lives, we use them once on a single project and never touch them again, however David Flanagan's JavaScript: The Definitive Guide has clear value and longevity.

This book provides 350+ pages of reference material for the Core JavaScript Language and Client-side JavaScript (the online Mozilla Developer Center is one of the few references that comes close to this level of comprehensive reference). In addition to these 350+ pages of reference material, there are 500+ pages of dialog that linearly walk us through the JavaScript fundamentals into more complex concepts. This books huge size (900+ pages) can be daunting, and is one definite drawback. Its sweeping breadth of topics (from JavaScript language operators to using Flash with JavaScript) can be both informative or confusing - reading JavaScript: The Good Parts (140+ pages) concurrently will certainly complement your understanding of JavaScript.

In short this book is the most complete references for JavaScript as we've come to know it, it covers JavaScript from A-Z, it's permeated with good advice - and for good reasons too, this is its 5th Edition, it has been recognized as one of the best books in JavaScript, and has been reviewed or edited by some of the JavaScript greats: Peter-Paul Koch (ppk on JavaScript), and Douglas Crockford (JavaScript: The Good Parts) to name a few.

I highly recommend this book, and am looking forward to Flanagan's newest book The Ruby Programming Language.

We are in 2008 and this is the Rhino book 5th ed. Try to google the terms "javascript variable names", you'll have a bunch of articles and tutorials giving you the javascript naming rules. Count how many articles you hit before one of them mentions that the ($) dollar sign is a perfectly valid character in identifiers (it's been so since javascript 1.1). This Rhino book already mentioned this back in 1998 when in its 3rd edition and possibly in previous editions. It is not to say that this is a life changing information, it's simply to illustrate a point. By knowing what is or isn't possible with the language you can put it to better use. You should own this book, even if you want to buy other JS books or even if you've read tutorials around the web and you think you know what you're doing. This book clearly details the language and its intricacies. If you're a programmer, you'll appreciate that you actually understand how javascript works. The bugs will seem a lot less obscure and some esoteric constructs found in various scripts and frameworks will look less like voodoo. You will certainly need other Javascript books that deal more with advanced practice, architecture and development techniques, but you need a solid foundation to build all that knowledge on.

I couldn't understand what the author wanted me to understand! I've learned PHP CSS XHTML and I wanted to learn the basics of javascript and this book didn't quite deliver.

Good information. Lowering from 4 stars to 3 because of its bad index. When I try to look something up, I'm usually taken to a page that mentions the term in passing - it takes a few tries before I find *the* page describing the term. Plus, it doesn't include the page number of the term in the API-reference appendix.

Obviously a computer-generated index - get a professional indexer next time! A good index would make this book more useful.

This book is a great reference book for JavaScript. I refer to it a lot for functions and the chapter on XML. As an AJAX developer, I highly recommend the Prototype / Scriptaculous "bungee" book from Pragmatic Programmers to complement this book.

I'm still getting into this book, but so far it has done a good job of explaining what is a new technology to me. I have some web development experience and this book hits me at the right level.

This refers to the 5th edition.

Ten years ago, JavaScript support was so different among various web browsers, I gave up trying to do any logical processing in JavaScript, and went into server-side programming.

Today, you still have to do a select few things two or three times in JavaScript to get them to work in all web browsers. But with much better standardization across browsers -- including broad support for Ajax, or remote scripting -- it's become worthwhile again to spend time on JavaScript development.

So, I took an online JavaScript class at the local community college. I bought this book as my reading text.

This "bible" of JavaScript skimps at times on simple examples, but provides several lengthy general-purpose code samples that show how to abstract out the client-specific or case-specific handling from an underlying set of routines.

Only the first part of this book is instructional. Then, there is the wonderful second half of the book, which is all reference. Divided into the core language reference and the client-side JavaScript reference, it's an essential quick lookup tool.

If you are new to JavaScript or (like me) brushing up on it after a long time away, choose this book as your in-depth background information and your ongoing reference text. Choose something like Dori Smith's JavaScript and Ajax for the Web, Sixth Edition (Visual QuickStart Guide) for your smaller, quick-start examples to play with.

Unfortunately, as long as browsers don't all support all the same JavaScript and CSS, there is still too much tedious hacking needed to provide a useful interface on the client side. Neither this book nor any other will get you past that little problem.

Well written and concise language description. Especially good for programmers who want to learn the language.

I knew next to nothing about javascript when I bought this book. I am not a professional programmer.

After twice reading the theoretical section (the first half of the book) attentively, I was able to program some pretty interesting things with javascript. The book provided sufficient grounding for me to fly solo and use my imagination. The reference section has been valuable for this.

I have read some of the negative reviews, and while I understand reviews that say this book could be more direct, practical and concise, I disagree with them as I found the author provided a very comprehensive narrative description of javascript including its nuances.

The author is in command of the topic, he provides solid targeted examples, and alerts you the salient points in those examples. He is teacher.

I have several other javascript books, but I return to this one regularly. Finding that the others are too cookbook oriented and do not give a sufficient grounding to solve complex problems.

The only thing that worries me is the quality of the cover and binding... while holding up.. my book is already looking tatty after just a couple of months. The book is an accessible javascript companion.

I ordinarily like to say that JavaScript is the worst programming language known to man, but I just read "Programming in Lua" and don't think I can continue in this practice. Nevertheless, it's pretty bad. From its lack of anything remotely resembling an "include" statement to its closures-over-classes OOP implementation, there is nothing pleasant about working in JavaScript, and that's why we need this book--to explain all the bizarre, counterintuitive nuances of scope resolution, interpreter variations and whatever all else the Netscape crackheads who forced this travesty on the world came up with.

Some people seem to think that any book that has the word "JavaScript" in its title should be packed full of code they can simply copy and paste until they have a bangin' new social networking startup site that's going to revolutionize the way we think about horrible photography, and those people are the ones who are disappointed with what they got. While AJAX and DOM scripting are discussed at considerable length here, this is not a book about making flashy, annoying websites.

I've had this book for a few years now and I think I've about worn it out and need to get another copy. I took it to work and my whole department borrows it on a weekly basis. It's very handy and covers almost everything you would need to know (from a professional level) about javascript. It's the "definitive guide" though, so you probably don't want to read this one cover to cover unless you're a robot. For anyone looking for a technical reference this is great.

O'Reilly books are always of high quality. At over 900 pages this book is a very complete reference. It has the functional organization characteristic of reference books. The answers are here but it's not the place to go to learn Javascript from scratch. I find tutorials that are project oriented much more approachable for the beginner. Once you've used Javascript to solve some basic needs this reference will become a great tool.

If you already program in C/C++, Java or Python, this is the right reference for making the transition to JavaScrript. It is thorough and is one of the few non-dreadful books on JS out there. Beware of an abundance of crappy junk in this area.....

This is the best explanation I have seen about javascript that doesnt read like a document.
Remember that other reviewers who have complaints are complaining about the 4th edition of the book. 5th edition doesnt have the lackings of the previous edition. My only suggestion is that the concepts could have been explained using many more diagrams especially with regard to execution context.

I Bought 5 books for Java script but ....
This book realy it's definitive way to learn Java script .
IT'S COVERS :

Scripted HTTP and Ajax
XML processing
Client-side graphics using the canvas tag
Namespaces in JavaScript--essential when writing complex programs
Classes, closures, persistence, Flash, and JavaScript embedded in Java applications
Generate a table of contents for an HTML document
Display DHTML animations
Automate form validation
Draw dynamic pie charts
Make HTML elements draggable
Define keyboard shortcuts for web applications
Create Ajax-enabled tool tips
Use XPath and XSLT on XML documents loaded with Ajax
And much more

I used to think that JavaScript was kind of a toy scripting language -- only good for doing minor web page tasks. But after reading this book -- my 3rd JavaScript book -- I found out that JavaScript can do as much as most programming languages, except for low-level system calls, etc. I'm starting to use JavaScript as my main programming language at home. It's a lot more fun than C++, and it doesn't require a compiler, etc.

David Flanagan knows JavaScript inside and out; he explains everything very clearly; and he covers every detail of the language. If you are a JavaScript programmer, this is THE book to buy. You won't need any other ones.

This book is not an guide for beginners, and it's not a cookbook -- though it's full of examples. But if you've done scripting for a while and want to effectively use JavaScript, you need this book.

It is well-named, as it is truly definitive -- with everything you need for JavaScript coding.

This is actually my second copy of this book. I previously owned a copy of the 3rd edition that was lost due to excessive water damage. I still pitch this as one of my favorite programming books. Very helpful and very well written.

This book is truly the definitive guide. It cover each and every aspect of the language, corrects misconceptions, and includes all the latest developments. All this, and an extensive overview of the major browser DOMs. A must have for anyone seriously working with JavaScript.

The information in the book is absolutely solid, but WOW is the information mundanefully unappealing. There was ZERO thought into keeping the reader interested with content layout, bordering, graphic design, illustration, examples, etc. It is a good resource to have handy. I hate to be the superficial simpleton in the bunch but I'm rather BIG on ascetically appealing text... (it helps with my acute A.D.D. ... j/k ;) this is not that. It's like reading the paper version (vs. online version) of the wall street journal... dampened by the rain and chewed up by the neighbors chihuahua. For those like me try, 1. "JavaScript in easy steps" 2."JavaScript for the world wide web" and 3."Pro JavaScript Techniques"... in that order.

Comprehensive reference, not overly technical yet not wanting for detail. I've checked out numerous books from numerous local libraries and even bought some only to sell or give them away after a few weeks. After studying this book i can say this is a resource i will wear out.

A good overview of JavaScript and an in depth coverage of libraries, 'native functions' etc. Some descriptions are not as formal as I expected, the exact semantics of the language is left to interpretation. For the compiler writers out there, go to the ECMA specification directly!

Worthy of its title, this book is very well organized and covers everything you need to know about JavaScript and it does so concisely.

This fifth edition is up-to-date enough to stand very useful for quite some time to come - a wealth of interrelated information all in one place.

This book is a must-have reference for any web developer interested in adding interactivity to their web content.