Beginning jQuery

Date posted
14 March 2013
Reading time
5 Minutes
Stephen Mahood

Beginning jQuery

Last month marked the release of my first fully published book, 'Beginning jQuery', after eight months of working on it.

I was first approached back in July 2012 after Apress stumbled onto my JavaScript blog and thought I might be a good fit for writing a book. After a brief discussion we settled on jQuery as the topic of choice. jQuery is a JavaScript library that lets you write less code to achieve more, and provides one solid API with reliable cross-browser support.

Writing JavaScript that works consistently across all browsers can be a minefield, especially with some of the older browsers still in use today. jQuery lets developers avoid that by dealing with browser inconsistencies behind the scenes. I've been working with jQuery for about five years and as such feel that I know it very well.

Beginning-jQuery

As you might guess from the title, 'Beginning jQuery' is a book aimed at people who have not written any, or very little JavaScript or jQuery before. It starts with an introduction to JavaScript to make sure the reader has the right foundations to continue, before taking them through the jQuery library, starting slowly and getting more complex as the book progresses.

Writing a book is also a great chance to verify that you know the subject topic as much as you think you do. There were a few times when I realised that I was able to use a certain part of jQuery, but didn't know it to the degree where I felt comfortable explaining it. When I found a topic like this, I would step back and spend some time reading up on the topic. I looked at the jQuery source to understand just what it was doing, and also tested it by writing some code myself, all with the aim of feeling confident in explaining the topic.

So far I've had some really great feedback from people who have read the book, and I hope it helps new readers to expand their knowledge of the subject. If you do pick up a copy, please let me know what you think and if you find it useful I'd love to hear from you!


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About the author

Stephen Mahood