There are many texts and reference books for use with JavaScript, of course. One of the major uses of JavaScript involves web-based and interactive visualizations. This book is quite extensive, consisting of 592 pages, 26 chapters, two appendices, two tables of contents, and a very thorough index. The author has done an excellent job of providing coding segments and building upon these in a clear manner. Nelli also provides a software environment to run and study the code within the book.

In this review, a brief overview of the book and its presentation is presented. However, it deserves a more focused review than citing the concepts in a chapter-by-chapter approach. I address the important topics that are presented in the book.

One of the key concepts in developing libraries for a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) page leads to the concept of the document object model (DOM) and using scalable vector graphics (SVG). The DOM is a tree structure of a document and, with cascading style sheets (CSS), it enables the use of application programming interface (API) methods in conjunction with SVG and DOM structure. These tools allow the programmer to replace Flash and its limitations with JavaScript libraries based on jQuery, jqPlot, Highcharts, and D3. This approach enables the use of SVG and the alternative of Canvas to show objects directly in HTML5.

There should be some discussion of how and why the author takes the approach he does, given the breadth and length of the book. On the one hand, the book is an excellent reference and quite thorough. However, it also is an excellent tutorial presentation. If the book had been only developed as an interactive learning tool within its own software environment, it would be perhaps more ideally focused. However, the author seeks to provide an environment that is available to the broad user community. Thus, short coding segments are given with figures illustrating the output (the figure as it is partially created), and then extensions of the coding segment are provided, followed by the consequences of the changes in the figure under development. This is an excellent approach and shows the student effect of the coding modification. This leads to a lengthy presentation, but one in which the student is given a highly customized tool for learning. It also allows the knowledgeable user to obtain clear references to the tools developed by the author.

The book is divided into three subsections. The first seven chapters deal with the use of jQuery and develop simple HTML tables, line charts, bar charts, pie charts, and a library of simple charts. The next subsection uses jqPlot, which covers line charts, bar charts, pie and donut charts, candlestick charts, scatter and bubble charts, and funnel charts. This also includes dealing with input data and topically moving from jqPlot to Highcharts. Finally, the last subsection of the book deals with working with D3 and topically deals with line, bar, pie, and candlestick charts, all in D3. Additionally, scatterplot and bubble charts are included along with radar charts and the use of live data. Additionally, the author provides examples in Appendix A and jqPlot plug-ins in Appendix B.

In summary, this is an excellent reference and instructional book covering a wide, yet focused range of topics for the user.

More reviews about this item: Amazon