In the interests of full disclosure, Packt Publishing sent me a copy of this book for me to review. There was no other compensation received for this review. I am reviewing this book for the benefit of the blog readers.
The recent release of jQuery 1.4 brought a plethora of new features and major performance improvements across the board. At the same time, the new jQuery API site was launched in an effort to improve the documentation and community spirit. Make no mistake, 1.4 is a milestone release for jQuery.
To mark this, Karl Swedberg and Jonathan Chaffer have released the jQuery 1.4 Reference Guide, an exhaustive tour of the functionality that jQuery 1.4 offers. There are eleven chapters, covering selectors, DOM traversal and manipulation, events, effects, AJAX, plug-ins, and more. In addition, there’s an alphabetical API reference guide and a couple of really useful appendixes providing lots of handy information.
As I mentioned above, each chapter groups together jQuery methods with a common theme. There are helpful code samples for each method, and they are explained thoroughly in the accompanying text. Occasionally, performance tips are mentioned, but as the book stresses early on, you shouldn’t worry too much about micro-optimizing code – your time as a developer is more valuable than that!
So who is this book aimed at? Well, as the name suggests, this is a reference guide. A familiarity with jQuery syntax is essential, and in some areas, a decent knowledge of vanilla JavaScript will be beneficial too. Although there are hints and tips peppered throughout the book, this is no tutorial book. If you’re not familiar with jQuery, you should pick up Learning jQuery instead, by the same authors.
As such, I would recommend this to the intermediate to advanced jQuery user. You will almost certainly learn something from the book, and a reference guide always comes in handy! Some of the major points I picked up were:
- Many jQuery methods accept anonymous functions as parameters now – this is a really clean, practical way of writing code
- There are more ways to measure elements than I realised – I knew about .height() and .width(), but not .innerHeight(), .outerHeight() etc. This has caused me problems in the past!
- The Sizzle selector engine is really, really powerful and I’m not using it to its full potential.
The downside of a book like this is that it dates relatively quickly. For example, jQuery 1.4.2 introduced two methods – .delegate() and .undelegate() – which are not covered in the book. There’s no getting around this when the library itself is under heavy development, but it’s something that you should be aware of if you’re considering purchasing.
I also spotted one error that I reported at the publisher’s website, so if you do purchase this book, you should keep an eye on the errata there.
However, if you’re looking for a jQuery reference guide, this is the book to own. The publishers will donate to the jQuery project for every copy of the book sold and you will learn something from this book, so it’s a win-win situation! The jQuery Reference Guide is on sale now, with a cover price of £24.99.
Tags: book review, jQuery
