The 5th edition of David Flanagan 's Javascript - The Definitive Guide is now also available on Safari and I have it on my online bookshelf :-)
I must admit that when I started reading the 5th edition, I quickly started to look forward to the 6th edition, although the 5th edition is well worth getting for anybody that works with Javascript.
The 5th edition seems to do some selective catching up and shies away even from Javascript 1.6 additions that look certain to be part of ECMA-262 version 4. Apparently, David Flanagan drew a carfully drafted line for what he wanted to include in the 5th edition and was thinking ahead to the 6th edition already. That's not a bad thing, of course. The result is a very clean 5th edition.
Too bad E4X ended up getting buried in the Client-Side section. I hope the 6th edition will treat it as an extension to Core Javascript instead. Hopefully, including mentioning it in the Literals section and in chapter 3, even-though it is an optional "standard extension".
One of the things that makes this book so great is the fact that it cleanly separates between the browser/client side and the core language, making it the best companion when working in Rhino based environments on the server-side such as Helma .
Naturally, when working in an environment like Helma, the limitations on using the newest language extensions do not apply, and the 5th edition doesn't quite cater to this niche as well as it could.
So, basically, I hope for a bit more "Rhino" in the 6th edition of the "Rhino book" ;-) ...and maybe even a chapter on existing server-side frameworks.
1.9.2006, 12:38