Introduction
This introduction walks you through a few basic things before you begin reading,
including who this book was written for, why it was written, the conventions employed
in this book and in the Sams Teach Yourself series, how the content is organized, and
the tools you need to create JavaScript.
Who This Book Is For
If you’re interested in learning JavaScript, chances are that you’ve already gained at
least a basic understanding of HTML and web page design in general, and want to move
on to adding some extra interactivity to your pages. Or maybe you currently code in
another programming language, and want to see what additional capabilities JavaScript
can add to your armory.
If you’ve never tinkered with HTML at all, nor done any computer programming, it
would be helpful to browse through an HTML primer before getting into the book. Don’t
worry—HTML is very accessible, and you don’t need to be an expert in it to start
experimenting with the JavaScript examples in this book.
JavaScript is an ideal language to use for your first steps in programming, and in case
you get bitten by the bug, pretty much all of the fundamental concepts that you learn in
JavaScript will later be applicable in a wide variety of other languages such as C, Java,
and PHP.
The Aims of This Book
When JavaScript was first introduced, it was somewhat limited in what it could do.
With basic features and rather haphazard browser support, it gained a reputation in
some quarters as being something of a toy or gimmick. Now, due to much better browser
support for W3C standards and improvement in the JavaScript implementations used in
recent browsers, JavaScript is finally being treated as a serious programming language.
Many advanced programming disciplines used in other programming languages can
readily be applied to JavaScript; for example, object-oriented programming promotes
the writing of solid, readable, maintainable, and reusable code.
So-called “unobtrusive” scripting techniques and the use of DOM scripting focus on
adding interaction to web pages while keeping the HTML simple to read and well
separated from the program code.
This book aims to teach the fundamental skills relevant to all of the important aspects of
JavaScript as it’s used today. In the course of the book, you start from basic concepts
and gradually learn the best practices for writing JavaScript programs in accordance
with current web standards.
我的内容管理
展开
