MacLochlainns Weblog

Fifteen years ago when I dove into JavaScript friends called me a hobbyist and said I was wasting my time. They had some basis in what they said because most of my work is server side with the database or operating system. However, they haven’t said that I wasted my time with the advent of NoSQL solutions, like Cassandra and MongoDB; or frameworks like node.js. Now writing JavaScript is mainstream and an invaluable skill set, and they’re trying to catch up. While David Flanagan’s JavaScript: The Definitive Guide is comprehensive, I recommend my students start with David McFarland’s JavaScript & jQuery: The Missing Manual. I also strongly suggest they use jQuery first and write JavaScript when jQuery isn’t suitable.

I really liked David McFarland’s CSS: The Missing Manual when it came out in 2009, and I’ve recommended it for several years. However, he’s got a new version – CSS3: The Missing Manual that came out in late January 2014. It’s an improvement over his first volume and I’d recommend you upgrade if you’re writing, modifying, or maintaining Cascading Style Sheet or if you just want to learn more about CSS.

Fortunately for me, CSS3: The Missing Manual is available through iTunes for Apple users, Naturally, it’s also available on Safari and Kindle formats. As an Apple user, I opted for the iBook format for my iPad Air. Unfortunately, it’s $27.99 as an iBook compared to $15.49 on Kindle, and that almost makes me opt to use the Kindle App. 😉

David McFarland’s CSS: The Missing Manual is a great reference on my book shelf. Next to it is Pro CSS and HTML Design Patterns book. The latter is a quick reference to those pesky things you want to do now that you may have forgotten, or not yet encountered with CSS. While the why is better in the McFarland’s book, the immediacy of solutions in Bowers’ book is fantastic. Together they’re an awesome set.