JavaScript: The Good Parts
- Media: Book (Paperback, 176 pages)
- ISBN: 0596517742
- Publisher: Yahoo Press
- Release Date: May 1, 2008
Product Description
Most programming languages contain good and bad parts, but JavaScript has more than its share of the bad, having been developed and released in a hurry before it could be refined. This authoritative book scrapes away these bad features to reveal a subset of JavaScript that's more reliable, readable, and maintainable than the language as a whole-a subset you can use to create truly extensible and efficient code.
Considered the JavaScript expert by many people in the development community, author Douglas Crockford identifies the abundance of good ideas that make JavaScript an outstanding object-oriented programming language-ideas such as functions, loose typing, dynamic objects, and an expressive object literal notation. Unfortunately, these good ideas are mixed in with bad and downright awful ideas, like a programming model based on global variables.
When Java applets failed, JavaScript became the language of the Web by default, making its popularity almost completely independent of its qualities as a programming language. In JavaScript: The Good Parts, Crockford finally digs through the steaming pile of good intentions and blunders to give you a detailed look at all the genuinely elegant parts of JavaScript, including:
- Syntax
- Objects
- Functions
- Inheritance
- Arrays
- Regular expressions
- Methods
- Style
- Beautiful features
The real beauty? As you move ahead with the subset of JavaScript that this book presents, you'll also sidestep the need to unlearn all the bad parts. Of course, if you want to find out more about the bad parts and how to use them badly, simply consult any other JavaScript book.
With JavaScript: The Good Parts, you'll discover a beautiful, elegant, lightweight and highly expressive language that lets you create effective code, whether you're managing object libraries or just trying to get Ajax to run fast. If you develop sites or applications for the Web, this book is an absolute must.
Great Javascript Book. Not for n00bs though.
The material is relevant and concise. Perfect guide for someone who has programmed in other languages but wants to get into Javascript.
Not for n00bs though. N00bs, you've been warned.
One of the best JavaScript small references book
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.
Not a simple reading sometimes, but direct to the problem
Even a long-experienced Javascript user will learn something new for sure from this great reading. I think that ALL must read this at least one time.
I can find only two drawbacks:
1) Some arguments are only named, but not really deepened
2) The only real critic to what is teach is about a "new way", less error-prone, to create objects in Javascript. The author really explain it and what is the problems with the standard method (about using or not the "new" operator)... but even if his arguments are good, the way he advise is not standard, and for me this is bad.
Crockford's book will improve the web
The best bit about all this is that, "the best bits" of Javascript are actually pretty amazing! Deep in my head, by looking at others' work (Google!), I knew that a great language was hidden in there somewhere - but it always eluded me. Those days are finally over!! I can't wait for my next web project!!
I have read more computer books over the past thirty years than I can remember. Despite it's deceptively short length, this is one of the very best.