Historical errata for Pragmatic Guide to JavaScript

Fourth paragraph; “bracks” should probably be “brackets”

last paragraph, “is not weel-suited’ should be ”well-suited"

The inner function in the “private properties” needs to be executed to return the not so private variable.

I chose this approach:

(function innerFunc() {
notSoPrivate = 43;
return notSoPrivate;
})();

I think

var love = { firstName: ‘Élodie’, lastName: ‘Porteneuve’ };

is invalid json

var love = {’firstName’ : ‘Élodie’, ‘lastName’: ‘Porteneuve’ }

Tasks overview, first item:
“We’ll first talk about cookies, on of the earliest ways of …”
should probably be
“We’ll first talk about cookies, one of the earliest ways of”

You might want to point out this technique only works for forms that have only a single submit button. Forms with multiple submit buttons append the name and value of the button. Disabling submit buttons makes the browser ignore the submit button pressed and confuses forms which depend on the button name appearing in the HTTP POST/GET parameter list to tell which event is being processed.

“document.observe(‘dom:ready’, fx)” should read “document.observe(‘dom:loaded’, fx)”, correct?

Sixth line starting from the bottom:
“load scripts at the bottom of the ” and even more […]

The word ‘page’ is probably missing.

Last ¶:

Most of use web developers
=>
Most of us web developers

Middle of page:
PDoc (a code inline documentation system)
=>
PDoc (an inline code documentation system) ?

Y.one(‘#id’).append(’

This gets at top

’)

is incorrect, it should be:

Y.one(‘#id’).append(’

This gets at bottom

’)

“jQuery is, at the time of this writing, at version 1.4.2.”

This was already mentioned at the bottom of the previous page:
“(The current version at the time of this writing is 1.4.2.)”

It seems a bit redundant to state this fact less than 1 page later.

Also, the current release is 1.4.4.

Missing space in the first paragraph of section B.2: “grab Firebug at [URL]or from the Mozilla Add-Ons directory” (at the end of the first URL).

The top of the JavaScript Cheat Sheet identifies it as the “Pocket Guide to JavaScript’s” cheat sheet rather than the “Pragmatic Guide to JavaScript’s”.

I was hoping the Guide (or at least the Cheat Sheet) would include a reminder of JavaScript’s odd way of defining a new class. Perhaps in a future update?

JavaScript code in ‘Try this example: “privates properties.”, var publicField = ’foobar’; should be publicField = ‘foobar’;

One of the reported errata is itself possibly incorrect. There reported errata in question is:

“#46276: JavaScript code in ‘Try this example: “privates properties.”, var publicField = ’foobar’; should be publicField = ‘foobar’; —Klaus Rohe”

The code in the book is correct. Either version (that in the book or that suggested by Klaus) will work. I verified this in a JavaScript console myself.

However, the book’s version exports “publicField” by making it a property on the object returned from the anonymous function. The version suggested in the errata report, that of removing the “var” before the definition of the “publicField” variable is unnecessary. In fact, the only effect it has is to make said variable global (in the context in which you run said example). This actually breaks the spirit and intent of the code example and of what the section of the book it trying to demonstrate: keeping your own junk out of the global namespace.

Here’s my console session log (executed in the Chrome Browser’s JavaScript Console):

> var obj1 = (function() { var privateField = 42; var publicField = ‘foobar’; function processInternals() { alert(‘Internal stuff: ’ + privateField); } ; function run() { processInternals(); alert(‘Still private stuff: ’ + privateField); alert(‘Public stuff: ’ + publicField); } ; return { publicField: publicField, run: run }; })();
=> undefined
> var obj2 = (function() { var privateField = 43; publicField = ‘foobar2’; function processInternals() { alert(‘Internal stuff: ’ + privateField); } ; function run() { processInternals(); alert(‘Still private stuff: ’ + privateField); alert(‘Public stuff: ’ + publicField); } ; return { publicField: publicField, run: run }; })();
=> undefined
> obj1.run()
=> undefined
> obj1.publicField
=> “foobar”
> obj1.processInternals()
=> TypeError: Object #