A Software Engineer Learns HTML5, JavaScript and jQuery

Book Description

24 May 2014: New revision is now available. Fully revised and re-edited.

HTML5 web applications are now capable of matching or exceeding the scale and sophistication of desktop applications, but with the unique advantage of running natively inside the web browsers on billions of desktop computers, phones, TVs and tablets.

This revolution (or more correctly – evolution) has happened for a number of reasons:

• Browsers have introduced new standards-based APIs allowing web applications to (amongst other things) store data offline, retrieve data from the server dynamically, spawn background processes and interact with the filesystem.
• Software engineers and programmers have begun to think of the much maligned JavaScript language in a new light, and unlock its potential as a rich and expressive language capable of producing large scale, well-structured applications.
• The jQuery library has eased the pain of interacting with Document Object Model, and therefore writing applications that dynamically respond to user interaction.
• The HTML markup language has been overhauled and extended to provide more semantic meaning, and many additional elements and attributes.

A Software Engineer Learns HTML5, JavaScript and jQuery guides you through the process I went through as an experienced software engineer, writing a large-scale, standards based web-application for the first time. It is intended to teach you the fundamentals of HTML5, JavaScript and jQuery – without presenting you with long lists of APIs, or intricate details of every feature (these can be found in reference manuals).

This book is not a simple introduction to the subject matter: it guides you through the process of building a feature-rich web application. The application begins simple, and becomes gradually more complex as additional APIs and features are introduced. This book includes the following content:

1. An introduction to the HTML5 markup language, and how it differs from HTML4 and XHTML.
2. An introduction to JavaScript, including an in-depth look at its use of objects and functions, along with the design patterns that support the development of robust web applications.
3. An introduction to jQuery selection, traversal, manipulation and events.
4. An in-depth look at the Web storage and IndexedDB APIs for client side data storage.
5. A guide to implementing offline web applications with the Application Cache API.
6. An introduction to the ways JavaScript can interact with the users file-system using the FileReader API.
7. A guide to the use of Web Workers in web applications.
8. An introduction to AJAX, and the jQuery API supporting AJAX.
9. An introduction to Server Sent Events and Web Sockets.

This book is intended for anyone with at least a superficial knowledge of HTML and programming (in any language).

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: About This Book
Chapter 3: A Brief Overview Web Applications
Chapter 4: HTML5 Markup Language
Chapter 5: JavaScript Fundamentals
Chapter 6: jQuery
Chapter 7: Debugging
Chapter 8: Moving to a web server
Chapter 9: Building the Web Application
Chapter 10: Managing Client-side Data
Chapter 11: Tidy up the Application
Chapter 12: Offline Web Applications
Chapter 13: Working with Files
Chapter 14: Web Workers
Chapter 15: AJAX
Chapter 16: Server Sent Events and Web Sockets
Chapter 17: Error Handling
Chapter 18: Conclusion

Appendix A: Cascading Style Sheets
Appendix B: Recommended Libraries

中文：

书名：A Software Engineer Learns HTML5, JavaScript and jQuery

2014年5月24日：现已有新的修订本。经过全面修订和重新编辑。

HTML5 Web应用程序现在能够与桌面应用程序的规模和复杂性相匹敌或超过，但具有在数十亿台式电脑、手机、电视和平板电脑上的Web浏览器中本地运行的独特优势。

This revolution (or more correctly – evolution) has happened for a number of reasons:

• 浏览器已经引入了新的基于标准的API，允许Web应用程序(其中包括)离线存储数据、从服务器动态检索数据、产生后台进程并与文件系统交互。
• 软件工程师和程序员已经开始以新的眼光看待备受诟病的JavaScript语言，并释放其潜力，使其成为一种能够生成大规模、结构良好的应用程序的丰富且富有表现力的语言。
• JQuery库减轻了与文档对象模型交互的痛苦，因此编写动态响应用户交互的应用程序。
• 对HTML标记语言进行了彻底的修改和扩展，以提供更多的语义，以及许多附加的元素和属性。

A Software Engineer Learns HTML5, JavaScript and jQuery 指导您完成我作为一名经验丰富的软件工程师所经历的过程，第一次编写基于标准的大规模Web应用程序。它的目的是教你HTML5、JavaScript和jQuery的基础知识，而不是向你展示长长的API列表，或者每个功能的复杂细节(这些可以在参考手册中找到)。

这本书不是对主题的简单介绍：它引导您完成构建功能丰富的Web应用程序的过程。应用程序一开始很简单，但随着其他API和功能的引入，它会逐渐变得更加复杂。本书包括以下内容：

1. 介绍HTML5标记语言，以及它与HTML4和XHTML的区别。
2. 对JavaScript的介绍，包括深入了解它对对象和函数的使用，以及支持健壮的Web应用程序开发的设计模式。
3. 介绍jQuery选择、遍历、操作和事件。
4. 深入了解用于客户端数据存储的Web存储和IndexedDB API。
5. 使用应用程序缓存API实现脱机Web应用程序的指南。
6. 介绍了使用FileReader API与用户文件系统交互的方法。
7. Web Worker在Web应用程序中的使用指南。
8. 介绍了AJAX，以及支持AJAX的jQuery API。
9. 服务器发送事件和Web套接字简介。

这本书的目标读者是至少对HTML和编程(任何语言)有初步了解的任何人。

目录表

第一章：引言
第二章：关于本书
第3章：Web应用程序概述
第4章：HTML5标记语言
第5章：JavaScript基础知识
第6章：jQuery
第7章：调试
Chapter 8: Moving to a web server
Chapter 9: Building the Web Application
第10章：管理客户端数据
第11章：整理应用程序
第12章：脱机Web应用程序
第13章：使用文件
Chapter 14: Web Workers
Chapter 15: AJAX
第16章：服务器发送的事件和Web套接字
第17章：错误处理
第十八章：结论

附录A：级联样式表
Appendix B: Recommended Libraries