Having recently completed one of Smashing Magazine's other titles, I had high hopes for this title.

While some of the information in the book is useful, it is a far cry from most of the other jQuery titles available and the section on the jQueryUI is practically non-existent. Aside from a brief explanation of the ThemeRoller, the examples of the UI widgets that are there merely tell you how to connect them with an element, with absolutely no explanation of their functionality.

Perhaps the worst thing about this title, however, is the sheer amount of errata the book has to offer. Nearly every other page has a mistake in syntax that quickly becomes confusing and leaves the reader spending more time sorting out the errors than they do actually reading the book. One example includes quotation marks in the syntax in one paragraph, which is suddenly missing in the next. Another, and perhaps the most ridiculous, are references in the jQuery code to class names that don't even exist in the mark-up.

To top this all off, there is absolutely no support on the book's website to report said errata. After all of this nonsense I tossed the book into the garage sale pile and moved on to greener pastures.

I'm completely new to jQuery and any javascript, and I think this book was meant for ppl like me.

I needed to use some javascript and couldn't find a resource that was working for me because online tutorials fell into two categories, either Kindergarten guides to creating a variable, or advanced techniques for creating plugins. I wanted, and needed, to start at the bottom, but without getting stuck in the basics. I found this book to be a great balance, and I've already used the info to implement the feature I **Needed**, so I'm moving on to stuff that is going to be even more fun.