Chapter 1, Object-oriented JavaScript, talks briefly about the history, present, and future of JavaScript, and then moves on to explore the basics of object-oriented programming (OOP) in general. You then learn how to set up your training environment (Firebug) in order to dive into the language on your own, using the book examples as a base.

Chapter 2, Primitive Data Types, Arrays, Loops, and Conditions, discusses the language basics: variables, data types, primitive data types, arrays, loops, and conditionals.

Chapter 3, Functions, covers functions that JavaScript uses, and here you learn to master them all. You also learn about the scope of variables and JavaScript's built-in functions. An interesting, but often misunderstood feature of the language—closures—is demystified at the end of the chapter.

Chapter 4, Objects, talks about objects, how to work with properties and methods, and the various ways to create your objects. This chapter also talks about built-in objects such as Array, Function, Boolean, Number, and String.

Chapter 5, Prototype, is dedicated to the all-important concept of prototypes in JavaScript. It also explains how prototype chain works, hasOwnProperty(), and some gotchas of prototypes.

Chapter 6, Inheritance, discusses how inheritance works. This chapter also talks about a method to create subclasses like other classic languages.

Chapter 7, The Browser Environment, is dedicated to browsers. This chapter also covers BOM (Browser Object Model), DOM (W3C's Document Object Model), browser events, and AJAX.

Chapter 8, Coding and Design Patterns, dives into various unique JavaScript coding patterns, as well as several language-independent design patterns, translated to JavaScript from the Book of Four, the most influential work of software design patterns. The chapter also discusses JSON.

Appendix A, Reserved Words, lists the reserved words in JavaScript.

Appendix B, Built-in Functions, is a reference of built-in JavaScript functions together with sample uses.

Appendix C, Built-in Objects, is a reference that provides details and examples of the use of every method and property of every built-in object in JavaScript.

Appendix D, Regular Expressions, is a regular expressions pattern reference.

Appendix E, Answers to Exercise Questions, has solutions for all the exercises mentioned at the end of the chapters.

You can download this Appendix from http://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/3127OT_Answers_to_Exercise_Questions.pdf.

You need a modern browser—Google Chrome or Firefox are recommended—and an optional Node.js setup. The latest version of Firefox comes with web developer tools, but Firebug is highly recommended. To edit JavaScript you can use any text editor of your choice.

This book is for anyone who is starting to learn JavaScript or who knows JavaScript but isn't very good at the object-oriented part of it.

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text are shown as follows: "If you want to be sure, you can check the cancellable property of the event object".

A block of code will be set as follows:

var a;
var thisIsAVariable;
var _and_this_too;
var mix12three;

When we wish to draw your attention to an output of a code block, the relevant lines or items will be shown in bold:

> var case_matters = 'lower';
> var CASE_MATTERS = 'upper';
> case_matters;
"lower"
> CASE_MATTERS;
"upper"

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

alias jsc='/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaScriptCore.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/jsc'

New terms and important words are introduced in a bold-type font. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in our text like this: "If the user clicks on Cancel, the preventDefault() method is called".

Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book—what you liked or may have disliked. Reader feedback is important for us to develop titles that you really get the most out of.

To send us general feedback, simply send an e-mail to <[email protected]>, and mention the book title via the subject of your message.

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