Ask HN: Is JavaScript the Good Parts still relevant?

#1

Post by skfroi » Mon, Jun 23, 2014, 4:19 PM UTC

During the past year I've been heavily involved in building and strengthening the tech community in Puerto Rico. As a result many students and beginning devs have asked me for advice on how to really learn Javascript. My response is always "start with Javascript the Good Parts".

In the state the the JS world is right now does this still hold true? Should I recomend some other book in addition to JtGP?

Re: Ask HN: Is JavaScript the Good Parts still relevant?

#2

Post by tgriesser » Mon, Jun 23, 2014, 5:02 PM UTC

"The Good Parts" is still a good one, but my recommendation these days now goes to Effective Javascript:

http://www.amazon.com/Effective-JavaScript-Specific-Software...

Outside of books, http://superherojs.com is another good resource to recommend.

Re: Ask HN: Is JavaScript the Good Parts still relevant?

#3

Post by skfroi » Mon, Jun 23, 2014, 5:13 PM UTC

tgriesser wrote: post #2

"The Good Parts" is still a good one, but my recommendation these days now goes to Effective Javascript: http://www.amazon.com/Effective-JavaScript-Specific-Software... Outside of books, http://superherojs.com is another good resource to recommend.

Thanks!

http://superherojs.com look really good. I'll definitely check it out.

Re: Ask HN: Is JavaScript the Good Parts still relevant?

#4

Post by _random_ » Mon, Jun 23, 2014, 7:23 PM UTC

I would recommend pointing them to this resource as well (19 pages and counting): http://wtfjs.com

Re: Ask HN: Is JavaScript the Good Parts still relevant?

#5

Post by peterashford » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 1:00 AM UTC

It strikes me as a poor apology for the crap status of JS with a sprinkle of Douglas's debatable opinion rather than a useful primer in modern JS.

Re: Ask HN: Is JavaScript the Good Parts still relevant?

#6

Post by bonsai » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 7:30 AM UTC

I can highly recommend books written by Nicholas Zakas.

http://www.amazon.com/Professional-JavaScript-Developers-Nic...

There is one shorter book that he wrote recently: https://leanpub.com/oopinjavascript

Re: Ask HN: Is JavaScript the Good Parts still relevant?

#7

Post by manishsharan » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 3:01 PM UTC

You may also want to check out Eloquent Javascript . http://eloquentjavascript.net/ . This is my goto book for Javascript

Re: Ask HN: Is JavaScript the Good Parts still relevant?

#8

Post by kb19 » Wed, Jun 25, 2014, 4:22 AM UTC

Javascript the Good Parts is for folks who already know Javascript. The concepts are more advanced than most beginners would encounter (currying, memoization etc).

Re: Ask HN: Is JavaScript the Good Parts still relevant?

#9

Post by petercooper » Fri, Jun 27, 2014, 10:58 AM UTC

Speaking JavaScript by Axel Rauschmayer http://speakingjs.com/ is quite well suited for people coming from other languages rather than newbies to programming.