Books On jQuery

I started learning jQuery a couple of days ago, and I’m doing pretty well if I say so myself. The jQuery I’ve seen so far has  been straightforward and quite intuitive. The book I was following was the jQuery Cookbook, but it got a little bit too ….. dry. I mean, it’s fine and all, but it’s just a list of problems and solutions. Problem: we need to start doing stuff only once the DOM is ready. Solution: here’s the ready() function etc etc. It got to the point where it was like reading a dictionary. To be fair, that’s what a cookbook is, and there’s a whole series of them that teach different technologies, but I’ve had enough of that style of teaching.

I’ve got a subscription to the Safari library of online books at O’Reilly (highly recommended!) so, as there was no extra expense in looking for another book, I went in search of something a bit more easily digestible.

Enter jQuery: Novice To Ninja, from Sitepoint. I’m not a fan of Sitepoint, and this book has its moments. But if you can get over the sickeningly over friendly style (“wow, we’re gonna make something really cool, so hold onto your nerdy hats while we rock this program”), you’ll find the lessons very good. Of course, everyone has different learning styles and different things push peoples’ buttons. It feels more like you’re seeing a complete project through from start to finish, as opposed to the isolated and standalone recipes in the cookbook.

Anyway, I’ve switched (temporarily) to the Sitepoint book, but I do have a habit of swapping between books. As long as you’re moving forwards, I don’t think it matters whether you read 100 books at the same time!