JavaScript & jQuery: Interactive Front-End Web Development

This book is one of the representative works of British front-end author Jon Duckett, originally published in English as JavaScript and jQuery: Interactive Front-End Web Development. It was translated into Chinese by Du Wei, Chai Xiaowei, and Tu Shuguang, and published by Tsinghua University Press in 2015. The book teaches front-end programming in a visual way: extensive diagrams, flowcharts, and clearly color-coded code examples break abstract concepts into easy-to-read visuals, making it suitable for readers who are just transitioning from HTML and CSS to JavaScript. The content begins with basic programming concepts and fundamental JavaScript instructions, then covers functions, methods, and objects; conditionals and loops; the Document Object Model (DOM); and event handling. It then moves on to jQuery selectors and common methods, followed by Ajax and JSON, calling third-party APIs, and error handling and debugging. The latter part concludes with three relatively complete hands-on themes: content panels (interactive components such as accordions, tabs, and sliders), filtering and search sorting of page content, and form enhancement and validation, applying the previously scattered knowledge points to real page requirements. In the preface, the author envisions a way of using the book that involves opening an editor and trying the code while reading, and every chapter's examples can be run directly to observe the results. It should be noted that the book was completed around 2014, and its examples are based on the jQuery version and browser environment of that time. Some practices (such as browser compatibility techniques and certain API details) have since been replaced by new standards and practices, so it is better read as an introductory text for understanding concepts and the DOM/event model rather than as something to copy directly into modern framework projects.