Appendix B. JavaScript: The Brains of Your Page
There was a time when the Web was all about markup. Pages held text and HTML tags, and not much more. Really advanced websites used server scripts that could tweak the HTML markup before it made its way to the browser, but the code stopped there.
Crack open a web page today and youâre likely to find buckets of JavaScript code, powering everything from vital features to minor frills. Self-completing text boxes, pop-up menus, slideshows, real-time mapping, and webmail are just a few examples of the many ways crafty developers put JavaScript to work. In fact, itâs nearly impossible to imagine a Web without JavaScript. While HTML is still the language of the Web, JavaScript is now the brains behind its most advanced pages.
In this appendix, youâll get a heavily condensed JavaScript crash course. This appendix wonât provide a complete tutorial on JavaScript, nor does it have enough information to help you get started if youâve never written a line of code in any programming language, ever. But if you have some rudimentary programming knowledgeâsay, you once learned a lick of Visual Basic, picked up the basics of Pascal, or took C out for spinâthis appendix will help you transfer your skills to the JavaScript world. Youâll get just enough information to identify familiar programming ingredients like variables, loops, and conditional logic. And youâll cover all the basic language elements that are used in the JavaScript-based ...
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