Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's probably a play on the "you don't know jack" trivia game.
More likely the common phrase, "you don't know jack shit".
the game was a play on that phrase, and my book title is a play on both. :)
You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series
31–40 of 84 posts
Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series
#32i'd be curious to hear others' opinions, but it seems to me JS isn't the sort of language that one wants to master in itself. it's very much a language defined by its use cases.
then again, i'm just trying to become an all-around better fullstack developer for my current employment situation - so i'm mostly using (and pull-requesting) frameworks rather than writing my own
given this perspective, i'm much more interested in the entire [and rapidly expanding] toolchain for modern js development - and learning the language's esoterica [and i am the sort of person who takes pleasure that stuff] as i become an all-around better js dev
Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series
#33i'd be curious to hear others' opinions, but it seems to me JS isn't the sort of language that one wants to master in itself. it's very much a language defined by its use cases. then again, i'm just trying to become an all-around better fullstack developer for my current employment situation - so i'm mostly using (and pull-requesting) frameworks rather than writing my own given this perspective, i'm much more interes…
> but it seems to me JS isn't the sort of language that one wants to master in itself
Well, depends how you define "master". To become a leading expert on it would mean taking time away from other skills, which probably wouldn't be wise. But if you're using JS quite a lot then learning it to an arbitrary level, let's say 80% of "master", well, that probably would be a good shout.
I suppose it depends on your skillset projection, do you see yourself spending a lot of the next five years with JS? If so, invest now in personal development. If not, maybe skim read it.
Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series
#34"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.
I thought it was an homage to You Don't Know Jack ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Don%27t_Know_Jack_%28video_... ). I read the title as "You Don't Know Jack Squat," haha. I don't know if that was the author's intent, though.
That takes me back! Never thought I'd see that again...
Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series
#35"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.
Am I the only one that finds titles like this completely offputting? No, you aren't, though FWIW I try to force myself to at least look at what's been submitted before commenting, in the spirit of not judging books by covers and all that. In this case, I found very little to suggest that I do not, in fact, know JavaScript. I'm also assuming that this is a very early draft of the material, but it could certainly benef…
> I found very little to suggest
Just curious what parts you looked at? Did you glance at the table of contents, or did you read full chapters? I certainly tried to reveal in every chapter several different things that, in my professional experience teaching JS to teams of developers, are commonly misunderstood or under-understood.
If you had any specific feedback on what I could have done better to live up to the title, tone, and mission of the book series, I'd be appreciative of it.
> very early draft
Depends on which book(s) you looked at. The series is 18 months old by now, with 6 titles. 5 of them are already "complete".
3 of them have already been edited and published (though publisher edits didn't necessarily all make it back into the free repo versions).
2 of them are in final editing and production stages, so they're still being cleaned up. The sixth one is still a very early and partial draft, so it's quite rough.
Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series
#36I love reading Kyle's work and have had the privelige of seeing him speak a few times. He has an uncommon capacity to dig into the little, grouty nooks of JavaScript and uncover precious veins of knowledge. If there is anyone that I would trust to write a worthy series of technical books on JavaScript, it's him.
Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series
#37i'd be curious to hear others' opinions, but it seems to me JS isn't the sort of language that one wants to master in itself. it's very much a language defined by its use cases. then again, i'm just trying to become an all-around better fullstack developer for my current employment situation - so i'm mostly using (and pull-requesting) frameworks rather than writing my own given this perspective, i'm much more interes…
> but it seems to me JS isn't the sort of language that one wants to master in itself Well, depends how you define "master". To become a leading expert on it would mean taking time away from other skills, which probably wouldn't be wise. But if you're using JS quite a lot then learning it to an arbitrary level, let's say 80% of "master", well, that probably would be a good shout. I suppose it depends on your skillset…
The proposition that I approach JS from, including my writing of these books, the JS workshops I teach, my OSS work, etc, is this:
If you're going to make JS your primary language that you write on a daily basis, doesn't it make sense to invest more time into learning it than just whatever you might accidentally pick up through trial-and-error?
Most developers in most other languages do tend to take formal learning of the language, to a deep extent often, a more serious task, but with JS it seems many developers just kinda get whatever they get along the way.
I have found that approach to be good at getting and keeping yourself employed, but bad at giving you any confidence that you actually know what's going on. If you aren't really sure exactly why your code works, my theory is that you'll never know exactly why your code doesn't work either.
I'm just trying to provide resources for developers who want to take learning JS seriously, and challenge "all" of us to ask, "just how much DO I know JS?" The rest is up to you. :)
Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series
#38Is there content in the book that isn't on Github?
The book series (6 of them) is drafted, and to some extent edited, on GitHub. What you see is what you get.
There are some edits and refinements that happen to the content during the publishing/production phase at O'Reilly that aren't necessarily appropriate to back-port to the repo. But I do try to get most of the main substance stuff sync'd.
The free GitHub repo versions of this content represents the drafts of the books in the mostly complete stage, whereas the published books (digital or print) are the final, final versions.
Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series
#39"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.
It wouldn't be a Hacker News thread without the top comment being an "Am I the only one...?"
Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Just wanted to say I appreciate any contributions (even "tiny tiny bit") you've made on GH. :)