Apress Pro JavaScript Techniques-John Resig

"Pro JavaScript Techniques" is definitely for experienced and advanced scripters. The level of abstraction is high in this treatment of the latest trends of JavaScript. If you are looking for ready-made scripts to solve some specific problem in your site or application, you are looking for a different sort of book.

If you have ever gone to Douglas Crockford's site to learn about advanced concepts in JavaScript, and withdrew dazed and abused by his obtuse examples -- but with a conviction that there was something valuable to learn there -- Pro JavaScript Techniques is for you.

The author states, and I agree, that understanding Chapter 2, "Object Oriented JavaScript" is the key to the puzzle. "The phrase object-oriented JavaScript is somewhat redundant, as the JavaScript language is completely object-oriented and is impossible to use otherwise. However, a common shortcoming of most new programmers is to write their code functionally without any context or grouping."
CHAPTER 1 Modern JavaScript Programming
PART 2 Professional JavaScript Development
CHAPTER 2 Object-Oriented JavaScript
CHAPTER 3 Creating Reusable Code
CHAPTER 4 Tools for Debugging and Testing
CHAPTER 5 The Document Object Model
CHAPTER 6 Events
CHAPTER 7 JavaScript and CSS
CHAPTER 8 Improving Forms
CHAPTER 9 Building an Image Gallery
CHAPTER 10 Introduction to Ajax
CHAPTER 11 Enhancing Blogs with Ajax
CHAPTER 12 Autocomplete Search
CHAPTER 13 An Ajax Wiki
PART 5 The Future of JavaScript
CHAPTER 14 Where Is JavaScript Going?

The chapter contains a clear exposition of what the author means by "context or grouping." In fact, his concise but relevant example code to explain the distinction between privileged methods and static methods lit up all sorts of light bulbs in my head...Finally! :-)
Be aware that the author's approach has a particular bias in that it is often directed at the *programmer* coming into Web scripting. The idea is to make the JavaScripting world appear more like the programming languages already known. You learn "how to go about writing a variety of object-oriented code to suit anyone coming from another programming language."