What a pleasant surprise, amongst a development landscape full of JavaScript libraries to actually find: Beginning JavaScript with DOM Scripting and Ajax by Christian Heilmann. To state it boldly, this is the JavaScript book we have all been waiting for (though, John Resig and Jonathan Snook both have books coming). Why? Because the author actually uses modern object oriented (Object Literal) coding principles in the books examples. As well, the book has a progressive enhancement mindset, and explains the difference between several implementations of the same functionality, based on accessibility. All of this is done without the use of a JavaScript library! However, in a way the author provides his own little library of helper functions, which is certainly more digestible than Prototype, Dojo, YUI or jQuery. The author even dedicates the last chapter to third-party examples, which demonstrates the usage of the YUI and jQuery JavaScript libraries.

Anyone trying to bridge the gap between CSS, HTML and JavaScript will not be disappointed with this read. It should be stated however, that the term “Beginningâ€? in the title of this book is a little misleading. I would not recommend this book to a beginner. It’s a fast-paced book, spending most of the time in the trenches of JavaScript implementation (code examples). If you are a beginner, build a foundational understanding of the language before you take on this book. If you’re looking for a great book to compliment this one, I would recommend the SitePoint book DHTML Utopia.