Comments on: DHTML Utopia Modern Web Design Using JavaScript & DOM

By: H. Zheng

H. Zheng — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:22:24 +0000

This book has a lot of great stuff but you have to have the patience to sit down and read it line by line. Can’t scan through the book and hope to learn something. Even need to type in the script and try it yourself. Some of the most important ideas the author just covered in two sentences. It does teach a lot of useful stuff but it is absolutely not a beginner’s book. Save me from my job interview.
Rating: 4 / 5

By: T. Ellison

T. Ellison — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 06:13:34 +0000

I agree with most reviews for DHTML Utopia; the book is middle level, leaving beginners in the dust but pros wanting more. It is, however, well written and contains very good code and coding standards. If you are not completely new to JavaScript and DOM scripting, but would like to learn more and make sure your code is up to today’s standards, then this book is for you. If you are very familiar with web scripting and/or have been writing your own unobtrusive client side code then go with a more detailed book.
Rating: 5 / 5

By: Chris Smith

Chris Smith — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:46:50 +0000

There's tons of DHTML books on the market, some dating back several years. However, most are impractical, outdated and lacking in modern best practices (admittingly, this book does stray occasionally from best practices, when it makes sense, and it's fully explained when and why it is done so).

DHTML Utopia's major selling point for me was the focus on cross-browser compatability. Useful interactivity is great to have, but not when it comes at the price of browser compatability. All the examples in the book work flawlessly in IE and Firefox and Safari, and all but a few work in Opera (and when this is the case, the author mentions it).

I also enjoyed the coverage of AJAX/Remote Scripting that this book provided. It's a "hot topic" at the moment, and it was great to see it explaiend in such clear and practical terms in a printed book. Rating: 5 / 5

By: Eric Jones

Eric Jones — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:21:25 +0000

So I’ve never been a big fan of JavaScript. I new it had a place in web design but I always left it to those people who really knew JavaScript. Well when I saw this book I decided to pick it up because I haven’t been disappointed with any [...] books. after the 1st few chapters I was hooked. I couldn’t believe all the cool things I had been missing out. And then when I got into the AJAX portion I was totally sold. If you have any desire to learn or get into JavaScript this is the book to start your library, and don’t forget to get the poster (might have to go to sitepoint’s web site to get that) it’s worth every penny and beautifully done!
Rating: 5 / 5

By: Wiz

Wiz — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:43:27 +0000

It make simple to understand how DHTML works; great examples; best buy with Professional JavaScript for Web Developers (Wrox Professional Guides) that handle in deep javascript
Rating: 5 / 5