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JavaScript Demystified Review by Artisan Concepts
Not a Keeper
I'm a novice programmer seeking to understand the fundamentals of JavaScript. Usually, I can grasp the basics of a new programming language well enough after reading a couple books to begin my own experimentation. Upon reading reviews and other information available for this book, I concluded that JavaScript Demystified would be a good first book for this purpose. I was wrong.
It does cover fundamentals. However, the author isn't an efficient technical writer, and I found his explanations convoluted, tedious, and lacking in precision. Further, while plenty of examples for JavaScript capabilities are provided, the author does little to nothing to couch them into real world contexts. The same is true for the 'tips' and 'sidebars' included in the text. Use of callouts like this is widely prevalent in technical manuals and the technique can be effective, but in this book what you get instead are irrelevent distractions that almost universally conclude in the same manner by stating that 'you'll learn about "this" later'.
The net result: you'll find yourself tagging along on not-so-clear, technical explanations without any understanding of why you should. That was OK for a chapter or so, but the book proved ineffective at addressing more complex material and I abandoned it as a result.