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Ask HN: Best current book to learn JavaScript?

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Re: Ask HN: Best current book to learn JavaScript?

#61

Post by voidhorse »

payne92 wrote: post #53

And anti-answer: consider learning JavaScript from something other than a book. The publication cycle for conventional box is relatively long, relative to the pace of technology evolution. By the time the author writes it, it's published, and you read it, the information can be dated, sometimes extremely so. There are gobs of online resources, and the best resource is rarely mentioned: reading other peoples code. Onc…

I generally agree with this. When it comes to languages and implementations it's often better to just learn by doing/hopping around little blogs and documentation here and there. As you said, technology evolves too quickly for authors to keep up.

That being said, there are some pretty fundamental abstract concepts behind all forms of programming that have stuck around for a long time: those old comp sci course materials. I'd recommend turning to books for some of that content, as picking up some knowledge there will support you no matter what programming language you try to learn.

Re: Ask HN: Best current book to learn JavaScript?

#62

Post by bobbington »

luminarious wrote: post #50

http://javascript.info starts out simple enough for complete beginners but goes deep enough that even intermediate users can find new details.

I found this site very useful because as you said it is easy for beginners but it also actually goes into how a is engine works enough for you to understand not only the what, but also the why.

Re: Ask HN: Best current book to learn JavaScript?

#64

Post by old_chap »

cdumler wrote: post #57
peterchon wrote: post #3

Eloquent javascript is also fantastic. http://eloquentjavascript.net/

My go to for people new to JS.

I'm learning Javascript. I can safely say im comfortable with most fundemental programming concepts...then the book starts talking about recursive functions.

Suffice to say once I hit that section I went back to codeacademy finished the course (which never brought them up and I'm not sure if that's good or bad) now I'm back in Eloquent Javascript...it get's really hard really fast.

Re: Ask HN: Best current book to learn JavaScript?

#65

Post by thearn4 »

theprop wrote: post #9

Forget books, start coding!! To get going, CodeAcademy.com is amazing!!

Getting your hands dirty is definitely a good thing, but CodeAcademy is a bit dry. The best thing I've found is trying to get someone to make something that THEY want or need. For someone 100% new to programming, that can be a bit tough though. So books, classrooms and MOOCs do have their place I think.

Re: Ask HN: Best current book to learn JavaScript?

#66

Post by predictand »

If you are a beginner and looking for an engaging way to learn how to code using JavaScript, I would suggest Coding for Visual Learners (http://www.codingforvisuallearners.com). It makes no assumptions on prior programming knowledge and teaches you the basics of coding using Javascript and p5.js in a very accessible manner.

Disclaimer: I am the author of the book

Re: Ask HN: Best current book to learn JavaScript?

#67

Post by devNoise »

veidelis wrote: post #51
tbirrell wrote: post #10

The problem with this question is by the time I finish typing my answer, the JS world will have moved on to the next big thing

Yes, React will be baked into the browser, wasm will be supported widely and everyone will write JS in their favorite language. Not to mention JS will have threads.

I've been going through the challenges and projects at freeCodeCamp to shore up my JS skills. I had been using React and started to focus on the D3.js projects. Started a new project with React and now I'm being told that React.createClass is being deprecated in v16. JS the language is getting better and more powerful. The frameworks and the libraries are a moving target.

Re: Ask HN: Best current book to learn JavaScript?

#68

Post by babyboy808 »

abraves10001 wrote: post #31

I think this question needs to be expanded upon before an adequate answer can really be given. Are you looking to learn code via JS? Are you proficient in another language that has similar constructs to JS and just need to understand the nuances? Are you somebody who has understood JQuery on a low level but never understood what the code was actually doing? I am sure there are a few more questions along similar veins…

I can code ok in basic JavaScript, mostly jQuery, but I don't really understand a lot if I'm being honest.

Re: Ask HN: Best current book to learn JavaScript?

#69

Post by fencepost »

old_chap wrote: post #64
cdumler wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My go to for people new to JS.

I'm learning Javascript. I can safely say im comfortable with most fundemental programming concepts...then the book starts talking about recursive functions. Suffice to say once I hit that section I went back to codeacademy finished the course (which never brought them up and I'm not sure if that's good or bad) now I'm back in Eloquent Javascript...it get's really hard really fast.

Not having any real experience with JS programming, is this talking about privately named functions (e.g. var MyFunction = function MyHiddenName (blah){}) or was this not being familiar with recursion? Or is there something else funky in JS that I just don't know about?

Re: Ask HN: Best current book to learn JavaScript?

#70

Post by bhj »

As a webdev who used JS for a while without really knowing what was going on under the hood and just chalking "unexpected" behavior up to That Darn JavaScript(TM), reading You Don't Know JS: Scope & Closures was really great:

https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS/tree/master/scope...

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