Head First JavaScript Programming

What will you learn from this book?

The new edition of this brain-friendly guide takes you through a comprehensive journey into modern JavaScript, covering everything from core language fundamentals to today’s cutting-edge features. You’ll dive into the nuances of JavaScript types and the unparalleled flexibility of its functions. You’ll also learn how to expertly navigate classes and objects, and finally understand closures. But that’s just the beginning. You’ll also get hands-on with the browser’s document object model (DOM), engaging with JavaScript in exciting ways. You won’t just be reading—you’ll be playing games, solving puzzles, pondering mysteries, and interacting with JavaScript as never before. And you’ll write real code, lots of it, so you can start building your own applications.

What’s so special about this book?

If you’ve read a Head First book, you know what to expect: a visually rich format designed for the way your brain works. If you haven’t, you’re in for a treat. With this book, you’ll learn JavaScript through a multisensory experience that engages your mind—rather than a text-heavy approach that puts you to sleep.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: A quick dip into JavaScript

Chapter 2: Writing real code

Chapter 3: Introducing functions

Chapter 4: Putting some order in your data

Chapter 5: Understanding objects

Chapter 6: Interacting with your web page

Chapter 7: Types, equality, and all that jazz

Chapter 8: Bringing it all together

Chapter 9: Handling events

Chapter 10: Anonymous and higher-order functions

Chapter 11: Modern syntax, lexical scope, and closures

Chapter 12: Advanced object construction

About the Authors

Eric Freeman is a computer scientist, technology writer, and entrepreneur. Previously, he was a CTO at the Walt Disney Company. Eric’s most recent book, Head First Learn to Code, is a beginner’s guide to coding and computational thinking. Eric lives with his wife and young daughter in Austin, Texas. He holds a PhD in computer science from Yale University.

Elisabeth Robson first got hooked on computers when she wrote a BASIC program to fill up her Commodore 64’s monitor screen full of hearts. She’s loved getting computers to do fun things ever since. She’s tinkered with everything from super computers to her iPhone, and she’s been programming the Web since the early days, when she built one of the first online resources for women in technology. Along with her many years of programming experience, Elisabeth has produced online training, and written four best-selling books and an online video course for O’Reilly Media (Head First Design Patterns, Head First HTML and CSS, Head First JavaScript Programming, Head First HTML5 Programming, and Learn to Build iPhone Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript). She is currently co-founder and principal at WickedlySmart, an education content and technology company.