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jQuery Books Review


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As you may have noticed if you read this blog on occasion I've been doing quite a bit of work with the jQuery JavaScript library in the last few months. I've kind of fallen into a couple of very client heavy projects and jQuery is turning out to be a key part in these particular projects. jQuery is definitely one of those tools that has got me really excited as it has changed my perspective in Web Development considerably from dreading of doing client development to actually looking forward to applying richer and more interactive client principles.

jQuery is an easy to use JavaScript library, so if you're just raring to go there's really no huge need to first read a book. However, I find that even once you get a bit of time with a tool it almost always pays to check out a few books and see different ways of how the tool can be applied. Over the last few months I've read through three  jQuery books and thought I'd share my thoughts on them here.

jQuery in Action
by Bear Bibeault, Yehuda Katz
Manning Publications (February 7, 2008)

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I've been really impressed with the editorial quality of all Manning books that I've read recently (including Linq in Action and Powershell in Action) as they are just very easy to read and digest. I think the editorial guidelines for the Manning books just work really well with highly annotated code listings that really highlight the key code points effectively as well as the frequent tips and tricks comments that seem to pervade each of these books.

jQuery in Action is the most recent book I've read and I've felt already fairly competent with jQuery. I still found the book a great read read both as a review and as inspiration for boning up on a few areas I've passed by so far in my jQuery usage.

This book works well as an introduction to jQuery as well as good general book to go a little deeper. The authors really provide a very readable introduction to jQuery that was worth reading over regardless of familiarity with jQuery and along the way I definitely picked up a few additional tips that I didn't previous know about. For somebody starting out the introduction and initial overview is fast paced and jam packed with practical information that will get anyone starting out a quick way to get started.

The more detailed chapters are also great in explaining some of the more advanced topics like advanced selectors and filters, sophisticated event handling, and some of the utility functions in an easy to understand manner. I enjoyed the authors' style of raising questions with "But what about this?" and then casually walking through this scenario and explaining how to solve it, which is an effective way to present practical content. It works and makes for a very readable book that you can just breeze through very quickly and pick up and retain a lot of information. To me at least this book was more about usage concepts than syntax and since there's not much to learn or even say about jQuery syntax. With jQuery it's all about finding effective use cases to put the power of the library to work and this is exactly what this book works well for.

Each chapter has examples that you can play with and some of which include very cool helper code that you might find useful. It's worth it to download and check out the samples and see how even some of the side line stuff that isn't discussed in the book is provided. The examples are often fun and short enough not to be painful to follow.

This book also includes a very short but useful "what you need to know" JavaScript section which is useful for those that have not kept up with JavaScript. I know it wasn't long ago that JavaScript was nothing more than a necessary evil to me and so a quick introduction might be handy, especially if you're an ASP.NET developer who stays mainly on the server. It's certainly not all inclusive, but focuses on the concepts that are relevant to effective jQuery usage and so right on target.

This is another great offering by Manning. So far Manning is 4 out 4 for me and the books I've picked up!

jQuery Reference Guide
by Karl Swedberg, Jonathan Chaffer
Packt Publishing (August 3, 2007)

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I picked this book very early on when I was starting with jQuery and although the jQuery site is very good about providing documentation I used the hell out of this book when looking for more information on how to apply functionality. This book is a no non-sense reference book (and it's based on jQuery 1.2.0 so it's slightly behind), but it includes additional information that you can't find in the jQuery docs. Some of the examples clearly demonstrate functionality of the jQuery library including many of the various overloads available on many jQuery functions which is often omitted in the online docs. I've found the choice of examples practical and usually found exactly a match what I was looking for. As reference guide this book is quite useful when starting out with jQuery.

When I'm heads down working on code I actually still prefer a paper reference and this is the book I turn to most of the time (although less now that I've used jQuery for quite some time <g>). This book fits that bill.

Learning jQuery: Better Interaction Design and Web Development with Simple JavaScript Techniques
by Karl Swedberg, Jonathan Chaffer
Packt Publishing (June 29, 2007)

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From the same authors of the above reference comes this book which is an introduction to jQuery. Like the jQuery in Action book this is also an all-around book that demonstrates with a lot of different examples. One thing that sets this book apart from the JIA is that it deals a lot more with design related issues and so talks a lot about CSS and layout manipulation which is actually something where I am myself a little weak and so quite a bit of code that was helpful for me. This book also reads very nicely and it's not very big (but expensive) so you can get through it quickly. One thing that would have helped this book is more illustrations to demonstrate results from some of the samples, but this is a relatively minor issue.

I don't think one can go wrong either with the jQuery in Action or Learning jQuery. Both books provide a well rounded introduction to jQuery from the perspective of someone not terribly familiar with JavaScript. If you are are already a hardcore JavaScript user then you're probably just as happy skipping either of these books and just jump directly into the jQuery documentation and get going and figure out the rest on your own.

 

But both books are great for inspiring perhaps different usage of jQuery to get ideas how to apply this library in a variety of different scenarios. It always helps to read up on a tool you're using regardless what your skill level. Sometimes reading can reinforce topics that you're weak on (like design related stuff for me for example) and there are always bound to be different ways to doing things that might be more optimized than what you're doing today. I've found all three of these books fun to read and learn a few things from.

jQuery Cheat Sheets

Now that I'm pretty comfortable with jQuery I also use cheat sheets quite a bit and there are a couple of nice ones available. The first one is a full color PNG sheet that you can print and  that nicely delineates the various groups of functions that jQuery provides:

http://shrinkster.com/y65

Another simpler black and white version that might be easier to print on a non-color printer:

http://shrinkster.com/y68

I take these cheat sheets and pasted one of them into my Visibone Browser Html Reference so I have it always with me. BTW, slightly off topic, the Visibone reference is THE shit for quick JavaScript, DOM, CSS and HTML reference especially when I'm on the road and don't have my books or a connection around. Even with the Internet handy Visibone provides me reference faster than anything else, unless I need more detail. With one of the jQuery sheets pasted in I have all client related reference material at my finger tips now. Highly recommended!

Posted in jQuery  

The Voices of Reason


 

Brett Baggott
May 27, 2008

# re: jQuery Books Review

I picked up jQuery in Action about a month ago because I saw it on your sidebar as what you were reading (I also picked up LINQ in Action for the same reason). Without sounding like a complete geek, I haven't been able to put it down since. Well, with one exception, I recently picked up CSS Mastery and now both those books are my constant companions. I'm actually on the final chapters of both and am looking forward to jumping into some sample stuff this week.

Anyway, the jQuery in Action book I have to say is _excellent_. Before reading it I had zero actual coding experience with jQuery. In fact, my only real exposure to jQuery was reading about how much you like it on your blog. However, I've been able to ready as quickly as I wanted to through this book without ever getting lost or feeling like some part of the picture was fuzzy.

I've just begun to start reading LINQ in Action but I think you're right, seems to be some excellent quality coming out of Manning.

Yehuda Katz
May 27, 2008

# re: jQuery Books Review

Hey Rick,

I'm glad you liked the book. We worked very hard on it, and tried to make it useful regardless of your previous experience with jQuery. Looks like we were right on the money.

Also glad to hear that Manning's been good to you. From the perspective of an author, they are diligent and helpful, and their editorial practices definitely lead to the high quality you're experiencing.

Stephen
May 28, 2008

# re: jQuery Books Review

Just finished "jQuery in Action" yesterday, and I wholly agree that it is an excellent and must have jQuery book

Janko
May 30, 2008

# re: jQuery Books Review

Thanks for very detailed reviews! I have to check out these books!

Lee
May 31, 2008

# re: jQuery Books Review

Awesome reviews Rick - Thanks... I have been looking at both books for a while, think I am going to go wth JQuery In Action :)

Chris
June 01, 2008

# re: jQuery Books Review

I've also just finished jQuery in Action, it's an excellent book. Very readable, great examples, and conveys brilliantly the power and elegance of jQuery.

Ron
June 02, 2008

# re: jQuery Books Review

The Visibone cheat sheets are good to have if you want the details right in front of you and you don't need to have any explanation of how to use it. The jQuery cheat sheet looks useful as well. Also, other cheat sheet sites I think others here might find valuable are at EXPERT Webmasters (www.expert-webmasters.com) for search engine optimization (seo cheat sheet) and The I Studio (www.learnandthrive.com) for various programming and operating system cheat sheets).

Mitch
June 21, 2008

# re: jQuery Books Review

Thanks for this Rick. I would send this to be posted on the jQuery site... a great map to get started with jQuery.

JOHN PARLATO
November 19, 2008

# re: jQuery Books Review

Rick, I'm very interested in learning jquery... I need to know how I can use it with aspx pages, outside of mvc... is that possible too? I'm finding examples with .jsp and mvc, but no aspx webforms? Any advice for me or pointers to some samples/books?

Rick Strahl
November 19, 2008

# re: jQuery Books Review

@John - yes you definitely can use ASPX pages with this. I'm finishing up an article on this topic as we speak (hopefully online next week) or you can download my recent DevConnections Sessions which has examples that show how to do this.

AlexPTS
January 22, 2009

# re: jQuery Books Review

I am reading "jQuery in Action". Good book!
Thanks! ))

Jason
November 19, 2009

# re: jQuery Books Review

FYI, the cheatsheet links are no longer working.

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