What this book covers

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.