Live data from Hacker News

You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

youdontknowjs.com

11–20 of 84 posts

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#13
post #6
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the post was titled "In-depth look at Javascript" or something, I might've skip it. This title piqued my interest because I write Javascript for living for a long time and I was genuinely wondering what I don't know yet about the language.

and did you learn anything new? just wondering

Didn't read the whole thing yet :). But glancing through it it seems that I really have some stuff to learn about Javascript internals.

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#14
I posted this link after having read the author's comment to a one star review on Amazon:

"Kyle Simpson8 months ago Report Abuse I can assure you, my goal of splitting up the content into a book series had ZERO to do with making more money. It's actually quite the opposite. One of the things I hate the most about tech books is that I spend $35-50 on a big book of which there's only a few chapters I actually care about. I almost never read a whole book.

I decided when I wrote this content that I'd make each logical chunk of content available separately, which means that you can buy only the stuff that you actually care about. This COULD quite likely mean that I make a lot less money in the overall picture, because there will be plenty of people who don't buy all the books, or even not enough of them that would have generated the same income as a single book would have.

This places you, the reader, more in control, not only of what you buy and own, but more deeply of what you spend your money on compared to the content you get. Rather than being about me greedily making more money, it rather downgrades my ability to make bigger chunks of money per copy for the majority of people who (like me) only want/need part of the content.

With regards to this content being "pointless", that seems quite a spurious and unsubstantiated claim. Pointless to you? Perhaps. But I feel quite certain there's a lot of content in there (like block scoping, etc) that most developers (and perhaps even you) aren't fully aware of. If you're already a JS expert (even on all the new ES6 stuff coming), then you probably do know JS and I'm not sure why you bought the book.

The spirit of the whole series (given the title) is to get us all (myself included) to admit how we don't fully know JS and how we need to dig deeper than we have before. If that's lost on you, I'm sorry.

One last comment: these books are all available fully for free to read here: http://YouDontKnowJS.com In addition, Amazon's site makes preview snippets of the book available to read for free so you can get an idea of what you're buying. It's a shame you apparently didn't read the content/previews before buying, you could have saved your $5-7 (at least it wasn't $35-50)."

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#16

"You don't know x." "10 things you didn't know about y." "Everything you thought you knew about z is wrong." Am I the only one that finds titles like this completely offputting? If you think you have insight that's useful to people, try not talking down to them. As it is, hell, I may not know Javascript, but I'm certainly not clicking through.

""You don't know x." titles considered harmful."

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#17

"You don't know x." "10 things you didn't know about y." "Everything you thought you knew about z is wrong." Am I the only one that finds titles like this completely offputting? If you think you have insight that's useful to people, try not talking down to them. As it is, hell, I may not know Javascript, but I'm certainly not clicking through.

Yup. The original talks were called "Advanced JS: The 'What You Need To Know' Parts" - and I'd much rather have a book with _that_ title on my desk, rather than one that makes it look like I'm reading a "...For Dummies" book.

Just putting it out there but knocking the "For Dummies" books based on the title is a bit pretentious. Sure, the title doesn't really make you look good but the books are often well written and informative. They have a great layout and serve well as introductory books.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say a lot of other books could learn a lot from the layout of the series. I've read many books and the dry books don't hold my attention for long. There is something to be said for books you just absorb.

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#18
post #13
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and did you learn anything new? just wondering

Didn't read the whole thing yet :). But glancing through it it seems that I really have some stuff to learn about Javascript internals.

Likewise. I'll read the books on Safari Books Online using the work subscription, just to fill in the gaps. I'm pretty sure I will actually learn something.

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#19

Six books, each $20, none of them that big? That seems excessive to me. Does it need to be spread so thinly?

All of them are available online for free - as the other comment states: the logical division is so you don't have to buy books about things you don't care about. It's not about making more money.

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#20
post #6
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the post was titled "In-depth look at Javascript" or something, I might've skip it. This title piqued my interest because I write Javascript for living for a long time and I was genuinely wondering what I don't know yet about the language.

and did you learn anything new? just wondering

I've read the book and even contributed a tiny tiny bit with issues in GH (the book is managed through GH). While I didn't learn much I did gain perspective about things so I'd say reading it was definitely worth my time.
Post reply on HN