JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford
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Book Reviews of JavaScript: The Good Parts
Book Review: One of the best JavaScript small references book
Summary: 5 Stars
JavaScript: The Good Parts by Crockford is written to be a quick and small reference for the javascript programmer.
It is not an exhaustive reference but rather a small collection of guidelines on how javascript code should be written.
The book touches on the major aspects of the language: objects, functions, prototypes, inheritance (with all its flavours), arrays and regular expressions.
Maybe the most important part of the language is given the most pages: functions. The chapter on functions gives a good understanding on function invocation patterns, on closures, callbacks, scope, augmentation, memoization, currying and function arguments.
Another important chapter is on inheritance and explains different inheritance styles. Although nice to read in general, the book also has some boring parts, like chapter 2 where javascript grammar is represented in many diagrams, one for each language construct.
There are some nice appendix chapters on the awful and the bad parts of javascript, which warn the reader of the possible pitfalls of using these parts of the language.
Alltogether, it's a must-have book for every javascript programmer, not necesarrily to take up all ideas but at least to understand the point Douglas Crockford has and only adopt the agreed practices.
Book Review: Don't code against the grain, stick to the good parts.
Summary: 5 Stars
According to the author, one of the biggest problems with JavaScript is that most people don't bother to learn the language before they start using it. Indeed, I was one of those people. My first impression of JavaScript was that it was flaky and fragile and very difficult to write robust production quality code in. It wasn't until I came back to JavaScript this year and read this book that I realized that most of my impressions were wrong and that if I coded with the grain, JavaScript is actually quite good and very powerful. This author does an excellent job of pointing out that though JavaScript shares its syntax with Java, C++ and C#, its actually a lot closer to lisp or scheme in the way you should go about programming with it. He carefully discusses what parts of the language to use liberally and what parts to avoid. As a professional developer with many years experience with C++ and C#, I found this book really helped me finally grok this language. Be thankful when you see how thin this book is. Each page is loaded with details and so it will take more work than you expect to wrap your head around all the great information.Book Review: Excellent way to become fluent in Javascript.
Summary: 5 Stars
I decided to pick up this book because I had been using Javascript for years as a "garnish" on top of my web development, but usually only in the form of a few hacked-together utility functions and edited scripts. In truth, I was afraid of the language - it appeared to be a very inconsistent, buggy system that took arcane knowledge to master across browsers. After starting to work with a number of JS frameworks, I knew I needed to confront the language and learn it properly.
This book is possibly one of the best technical/programming related books I have had the pleasure of reading. It doesn't try to be a massive encyclopedic volume like most of my other technical books, so I didn't have to devote countless hours and days pushing through lengthy filler. Every section contains brief information about the most critical parts of Javascript you need to begin coding what you need right away in a tidy object-oriented fashion. If you have experience with any other C-based language and understand general OOP concepts, this book will make you fluent in Javascript with the least amount of time and effort on your part!
Book Review: Excellent, Dense Reference
Summary: 5 Stars
If you are familiar with programming and need to add JavaScript to your tool belt, this book will quickly teach you not only the syntax of JavaScript, but how to best employ it. The book is short but thorough; by focusing only on the "good parts" of JavaScript and giving you design patterns on how to use them, it succeeds in giving you only the information you need to become a good JavaScript programmer, and no more. It will not teach you everything about JavaScript, or help you read badly written JavaScript. The author states that the book is not a reference, but I believe it is more of a reference than a how-to book.
Many of this book's topics are covered at Yahoo's "YUI Theater" in a collection of the author's lectures (http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/theater/ anything by Douglas Crockford). If you are interested in YUI at all, this book will help you understand the conventions used in YUI.
To paraphrase the author, if you want a book that teaches you how to be a horrible JavaScript programmer, get any other JavaScript book.
Book Review: Essential Read For Javascript Developers
Summary: 5 Stars
'JavaScript: The Good Parts' is a beautiful book that is a must-buy for all Javascript developers out there. Written with brevity clearly in mind (total is only a scant 150+ pages), this book will teach you how to become a BETTER Javascript developer and know why you want to do some things one way and avoid the pitfalls of doing things the WRONG way.
This book is all about efficiency and cleanliness. Written by one of the main developers of JSON, this book is organized smartly and craftfully. I love the fact that there isn't bloat and it's very easy to get through this book in no time at all. Does that mean you aren't getting your money's worth with this book??? HELLS NO!!
If you want to improve your Javascript developing skillset you owe it to yourself to pick up this book, it's one of the best books on the market in this subject matter.
***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED