Murach’s Modern JavaScript

This book is designed for anyone who wants to learn how to write JavaScript. Today, that includes:

• Web designers who use HTML and CSS to provide the content and formatting for web pages and want to use JavaScript to add functionality to those pages
• Server-side programmers who use languages like Python, PHP, Java, or C# and would like to use JavaScript to provide client-side scripting for their web apps

To present the JavaScript skills that you need in a manageable progression, this book is divided into three sections. Each section represents a level of expertise that you will achieve.

What this book does

Section 1: Get started fast

Section 1 presents a seven-chapter course in JavaScript that gets you started fast. Because the pace is adjustable, this section works for those with no prior programming experience as well as for experienced professionals. Beginners can read each chapter carefully and do all the exercises. Professionals can skim over the parts they already know and focus on the differences with other languages. Either way, when you finish this section, you will be able to develop real-world JavaScript apps that script the DOM.

Section 2: Master the essential skills

Section 2 presents the rest of the essential skills that any web developer should have. This includes validating data, saving data in the browser, and working with dates, times, and timers. In addition, this section shows how to use object-oriented programming to organize your code by defining your own objects and by using ES modules.

Section 3: More skills as you need them

When you have time, you can use the chapters in this section to raise your JavaScript skills to a higher level of expertise. This section shows how to:

• Use Ajax to asynchronously update a part of a web page without reloading the entire page.
• Use Node.js to run JavaScript on the server, including how to create a web-based API that manages data on a server.
• Use the HTML element to create drawings and animations.

Why you'll learn faster and better with this book

Like all our books, this book is designed to make it as easy as possible for you to learn new skills faster and retain them better. Here are a few of those features:

• It presents the modern JavaScript skills you’ll definitely need on the job without wasting your time by presenting confusing old features that you aren’t likely to need.
• The hundreds of short examples quickly show you how a feature works, and the dozens of longer code examples show you how these features work together in a complete app.
• The exercises at the end of each chapter provide a way for you to gain valuable hands-on experience without any extra busywork.
• All of the information is presented in paired pages, with the essential syntax, guidelines, and examples on the right page and clear explanations on the left page. This helps you learn faster by reading less.
• The paired-pages format is ideal for reference when you need to refresh your memory about how to do something.

Recommended software

To develop JavaScript apps, this book recommends that you use the following software. All of this software is available for free. And appendixes A (Windows) and B (macOS) provide complete, step-by-step instructions that you can use to install it on your system.

Visual Studio Code

This popular code editor is free and provides many excellent features for developing JavaScript apps.

Google Chrome

This web browser provides excellent developer tools for debugging JavaScript apps.

Node.js

This runtime environment makes it possible to run JavaScript on a server instead of running it in a web browser.