Beginning JavaScript with DOM Scripting and Ajax: From Novice to Professional

The book's title suggests that it's a book for beginners as well as experienced programmers, but I wouldn't recommend this book to a person who is just starting to learn JavaScript unless you know a similar scripting language. The first few chapters of the book explain the basics like data types and variables, but then the author suddenly starts throwing really long examples of code at the reader that will definitely confuse an inexperienced programmer. He ends each chapter with "now you know how to do this, and that" which is frustrating because he doesn't take the time to explain everything and just assumes that you will figure it out by yourself. He also tells you to ignore some parts of code and tells you that it will be explained later in the book, but if you are like me and won't start a new chapter until you have completely understood the current chapter this is going to annoy you. You feel almost like you have skipped a chapter or two and now can't understand what the author is talking about. It seems like he just decided that it would be easier to just cut and paste big chunks of code to the book and add brief and often vague explanations rather than take a more traditional approach. I would recommend this book only to people who know JavaScript and want to learn new techniques and improve their skills. If you are a beginner and just starting to learn JavaScript buy a "JavaScript for dummies" type book and once you learn the basics read this book to improve your knowledge of JavaScript.