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JavaScript: Just the Basics

A Primer for the Complete Beginner

By Michael J Young

Learn JavaScript for the price of a fancy coffee drink.

JavaScript has become one of the most ubiquitous and important computer languages. It's now used not only for adding active behavior to web pages, but also for writing applications for web servers, mobile devices, and even the computer desktop. Despite its popularity, however, JavaScript isn't easy to learn or to understand. JavaScript isn't simply "Java Lite." Rather, it's a highly unique, subtle, flexible, quirky, hazardous, full-featured, and fascinating computer language.

I wrote this book to simplify JavaScript, to teach the basics of the language clearly and quickly so that you can begin working with it as soon as possible. The other JavaScript books I've read are either way too long for the beginner, or seem to have other primary agendas such as critiquing the language or teaching programming principles. This book is for the webmaster, the web programmer, or the web designer who wants to learn JavaScript now, but isn't quite ready to tackle the 1,000 page Flanagan tome.

No matter how far you plan to delve into JavaScript in the future, this book will provide the first step. It certainly doesn't include all the details of this complex language. It doesn't duplicate the free online JavaScript documentation, but rather is meant to be used in conjunction with it and includes many documentation links. It focuses on basic and practical techniques, and avoids advanced, redundant, and less useful ones. It emphasizes legacy features that are supported consistently by all modern browsers, and skirts browser-dependent features as well as new features that are still under development. But to keep things interesting and to offer a vision of the possibilities, it does include a number of demonstrations to introduce you to more advanced JavaScript technologies, such as animations, cookies, and Ajax.

I think that you'll find JavaScript: Just the Basics to be a highly readable tutorial, which you can enjoy from beginning to end, and that you'll take away a good basic understanding of the language and how to use it.

This book was conceived, designed, written, and formatted as a digital-only book. I've carefully prepared the manuscript so that the source code listings, tables, and figures are easy to read, and the book is simple to navigate. The book does not include a traditional index. For most ebooks, indexes are awkward and slow. Plan to use your ebook reader's much more powerful Search feature instead.

The book is approximately 50,000 words in length.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I. The Core JavaScript Language

Chapter 1. Variables and Values
Chapter 2. Expressions and Operators
Chapter 3. Flow Control
Chapter 4. Objects and Arrays
Chapter 5. Defining Functions and Methods
Chapter 6. Constructors and Inheritance
Chapter 7. Pattern Matching with Regular Expressions

Part II. Client-Side JavaScript: Adding Dynamic Behavior to Web Pages

Chapter 8. Running JavaScript in the Browser
Chapter 9. Scripting Browser Windows
Chapter 10. Scripting Web-Page Content
Chapter 11. Scripting Web-Page Styles
Chapter 12. Handling Web-Page Events

Download the Example Source Code Listings!

available now! Purchase, Borrow, or Sample Book

The book is available exclusively from the Amazon Kindle Store. If you don't have a Kindle (or even if you do!), you can download a free Kindle reading application for almost any computer, tablet, or mobile device. You can also read the book in your browser through the Kindle Cloud Reader. Go to the Free Kindle Reading Apps page on Amazon.

Purchase the Kindle book ($5.99), borrow it (free, for Amazon Prime members), or download a free sample through one of the following links:

 

I have a master's degree in computer science and have been writing books for computer programmers and users since 1986. The programming books have covered MS-DOS, OS/2, Windows, C, C++, Visual Basic, Java, XML, animation, game, and graphics programming. The user-level books have focused on Microsoft Office applications.

My first 26 books were written for major publishers—Microsoft Press, Wiley/Sybex, Elsevier/Academic Press, Addison-Wesley, and Pearson Education/Peachpit Press. More than a million of these books have been sold, and they have been translated into many languages. My book XML Step by Step won the top award, "Distinguished Technical Communication," in the 2000-2001 International Technical Publications Competition of the Society for Technical Communication. You'll find descriptions and companion web pages for these books on the books page. The book presented here, JavaScript: Just the Basics, is my first self-published digital book.

I began programming computers in 1984. My web, desktop, and mobile programming work is showcased on the programming page. All of the websites I've created were hand coded in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and MySQL. I currently create applications for iOS devices—please visit the KeitaiArts website.

You can find more details in my biography.

 

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"Michael Young has long specialized in writing for the intermediate programmer about the nuts and bolts of systems programming. ... This is a thorough, high-quality book which I shall undoubtedly refer to frequently. Definitely recommended." [Systems Programming in Microsoft C]
Andrew Binstock, C Gazette
"Its coherent style, the clarity of the material, and the attractiveness of the topic make the book good and easily approachable." [Windows Animation Programming with C++]
Svetlana Segarceanu, Computing Reviews
"A concise, practical, no-nonsense guide ... A well-designed and well-illustrated book." [Windows Programming with Microsoft C++]
PC Techniques magazine
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G. Michael Vose, Byte Magazine
Performance Programming Under MS-DOS was selected by the PC-Tech Journal reader opinion poll of favorite books for 1988 (cited in the January, 1989 issue).
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Gerald Sacks, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Mathematics, Harvard University
"Recommended for anyone seriously committed to programming in OS/2. ... It is a good reference book as well as a senior tutorial." [Programmer's Guide to OS/2]
Hugh Mooney, Big Blue & Cousins
"You'll not only enjoy yourself, but I suspect you'll become a much better Visual Basic programmer." [Visual Basic—Game Programming for Windows]
PC Techniques magazine
"I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It was a clear, concise treatment of some very practical, but generally neglected, subjects." [Systems Programming in Microsoft C]
Tom Stephens, President, ScribeWare Corp., Pomona, NY
"Congratulations on an excellent book, which is one of my most valued possessions." [Systems Programming in Turbo C]
Dr. Melford John, Kingston, Jamaica
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"Programmer's Guide to the OS/2 Presentation Manager is very well written, perhaps the best book I have used in 1989. The author appears to have a very clear visualization of how people will actually use the book. In particular, he starts from ground zero and systematically builds up the necessary concepts and vocabulary to say what he has to say. Every sentence is understandable, without forward references. Time and again, there are sentences inserted into the text which appear to have been added at exactly the point where someone could become confused. ..."
Robin Tivy, Vancouver, B.C.

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