Kirupa Chinnathambi - JavaScript Absolute Beginner’s Guide

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Kirupa Chinnathambi

Pearson Education
800 East 96th Street
Indianapolis, Indiana 46240
USA

JavaScript Absolute Beginners Guide

Copyright 2017 by Pearson Education

All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Nor is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7897-5806-4
ISBN-10: 0-7897-5806-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016939721

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing: July 2016

Acquisitions Editor
Mark Taber

Development Editor
Chris Zahn

Copy Editor
Autumn Spalding

Production Editor
Lori Lyons

Technical Editors
Trevor McCauley
Kyle Murray

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To Meena!

(Who still laughs at the jokes found in these pages despite having read them a bazillion times!)

As I found out, getting a book like this out the door is no small feat. It involves a bunch of people in front of (and behind) the camera who work tirelessly to turn my ramblings into the beautiful pages that you are about see. To everyone at Pearson who made this possible, thank you!

With that said, there are a few people Id like to explicitly call out. First, Id like to thank Mark Taber for giving me this opportunity, Chris Zahn for patiently answering my numerous questions, and Loretta Yates for helping make the connections that made all of this happen. The technical content of this book has been reviewed in great detail by my long-time friends and online collaborators, Kyle Murray and Trevor McCauley. I cant thank them enough for their thorough (and occasionally, humorous!) feedback.

Lastly, Id like to thank my parents for having always encouraged me to pursue creative hobbies like painting, writing, playing video games, and writing code. I wouldnt be half the rugged indoorsman I am today without you both.

Kirupa Chinnathambi has spent most of his life trying to teach others to love web development as much as he does.

In 1999, before blogging was even a word, he started posting tutorials on kirupa.com. In the years since then, he has written hundreds of articles, written a few books (none as good as this one, of course!), and recorded a bunch of videos you can find on YouTube. When he isnt writing or talking about web development, he spends his waking hours helping make the Web more awesome as a Program Manager in Microsoft. In his non-waking hours, he is probably sleeping...or writing about himself in the third person.

You can find him on Twitter (). Feel free to contact him anytime.

Have you ever tried learning to read, speak, or write in a language different from the one you grew up with? If you were anything like me, your early attempts probably looked something like the following:

Unless you are Jason Bourne (or Roger Federer), you barely survived learning your first language. This is because learning languages is hard. It doesnt matter if you are learning your first language or a second or third. Being good at a language to a point where you are useful in a non-comical way takes a whole lotta time and effort.

It requires starting with the basics: