Must Read: JavaScript: The Good Parts
Posted by magician | Posted in Web | Posted on 28-12-2011
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I just finished JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford and I highly, highly recommend it for anyone who is coming from a programming world that isn’t JavaScript. It’s an intelligent, and well-written book, but it also does the best job of anything I’ve seen yet at explaining some of the nuances of JavaScript and why they can be beneficial.
I was absolutely one of those people who looked at JavaScript as a runty kid brother when I compared it to ActionScript 3. I started off wanting a lot of what ActionScript 3 had in JavaScript. This book completely changed my opinion because it did a fantastic job of laying out how some of the seemingly less-well designed parts of JavaScript end up being pretty powerful. It also highlights some of the areas (like Scope) where JavaScript uses C-like syntax but doesn’t implement it in the same way and may trip up developers. Finally there are a couple of chapters on the bad and awful parts of JavaScript to be aware of.
In a lot of ways it’s the perfect book for someone coming from AS3 to JavaScript. I think it will give you some new found respect for JavaScript and help with some of the parts of JS that seem a little contrary.



