You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series • Hacker News Board

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#41

Post by nailer » Mon, Feb 16, 2015, 3:03 PM UTC

gondo wrote: post #6

M4v3R wrote: 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

There's a bunch of stuff here even folk with a few years may not know. See the generators section at https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS/blob/master/async...

Learning JS is very different from other languages in that there's greater amounts of misinformation (lots of people know it, but prefer to use it as little as possible), and it changes faster. For example, in 2015:

- you won't find any Python new articles that tell you to use Python 1's 'strings' module

- You'll still see things like tag soup, 'JS isn't object oriented', globals and patchable-ES3-isms in new JS articles.

Kyle Simpson is a well known JS speaker and O Reilly author - his books are a great source of current best practice.

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#42

Post by bryanrasmussen » Mon, Feb 16, 2015, 3:11 PM UTC

imdsm wrote: post #17

AndrewDucker wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

I find the for Dummies books nearly unusable due to the evident required number of puns and homespun regular folks observations between every bit of actual technical info.

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#43

Post by mlntn » Mon, Feb 16, 2015, 3:14 PM UTC

For those interested, I recently found a tool that will convert Markdown files into an ebook. I used it for the Laravel docs, but you could use it for these books too. I'm sure there are other tools, but this was very simple to get going.

http://easybook-project.org/

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#44

Post by _getify » Mon, Feb 16, 2015, 3:21 PM UTC

mlntn wrote: post #43

For those interested, I recently found a tool that will convert Markdown files into an ebook. I used it for the Laravel docs, but you could use it for these books too. I'm sure there are other tools, but this was very simple to get going. http://easybook-project.org/

Also note that these books are available for purchase as actual official ebooks. If you read the content and find it helpful, I of course appreciate any purchases made. :)

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#45

Post by ekidd » Mon, Feb 16, 2015, 3:27 PM UTC

_getify wrote: post #30

semperfaux wrote: post #2

"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 explain the title, and the intended tone and purpose of the book series, in the preface. If you wouldn't mind taking the 3 minutes to read it, I'd be curious if it changes anything about your opinion of the title: https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS/blob/master/prefa...

Nope, it still doesn't work for me, personally. I never played "You Don't Know Jack", and so I tend to interpret your title literally. And your title implies that no matter how much somebody knows about JavaScript, it's not enough.

Two decades ago, I was really into learning all the disgusting corners of badly-designed programming languages. I got really excited about C++ implicit conversions and clever template hacks. But that always proved to be a mistake, because nobody wants to read or maintain any of that crap.

These days, I try to focus on the essentials of a language: What works well and portably? What offers unique expressive capabilities that I haven't seen before? What's idiomatic? If I learn any nasty corner-cases, I only do it solve a specific problem, or to avoid pitfalls.

I really can't get excited about the implicit conversion semantics of JavaScript's "==" operator or the weirder points of how "this" get bound in callbacks. It's all just pointless technical arcana. If something neither expands my brain nor solves an immediate commercial problem, I'm happy ignoring it until it becomes obsolete. And my clients are usually a lot happier, too.

(That said, the actual books are nicely written. But you asked about the titles.)

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#46

Post by _getify » Mon, Feb 16, 2015, 3:30 PM UTC

AndrewDucker wrote: post #10

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

> each $20

I'm trying to work with O'Reilly to bring down the prices on the books a little bit. I always wanted them to be priced so that price wasn't a barrier to entry. As you can imagine, there's lots of intricate details which restrict what I can do with pricing.

> none of them that big

Hmmm...

Page counts on the titles (so far) are: 65, 98, 176, 189, 296. The last book isn't finished yet, but I'm projecting it to be somewhere around the 150-200 mark.

I can appreciate that $20 for a 100pg book may feel "excessive", but what about $26 for a 296 page book?

Moreover, I'm working (still) on getting O'Reilly to release a box set for a flat price that will be much more reasonable than buying each book individually, so that if you want the whole series you'll have an affordable option for that.

And you'll of course still have the option to buy just one or two of the books if that's your fancy.

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#47

Post by sosuke » Mon, Feb 16, 2015, 3:31 PM UTC

_getify wrote: post #30

semperfaux wrote: post #2

"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 explain the title, and the intended tone and purpose of the book series, in the preface. If you wouldn't mind taking the 3 minutes to read it, I'd be curious if it changes anything about your opinion of the title: https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS/blob/master/prefa...

Having played the "You Don't Know Jack" PC game from 1995 I found the title playful. From your preface I see you'll be doing exactly what I wanted from a book with this title. Going into all the areas I never would in a programming language. Not just how but why.

I agree with the GP though, on feeling some fatigue around people telling me I'm doing something wrong. Eating food, reading a book, tying my shoes, putting on a shirt. Anyhow it seems like you've just touched on that area a bit for this person. Experts don't like for Dummies books, not because they are rubbish, which they might be, but because owning or reading them visibly puts into question their knowledge and challenges their self image. In the same way someone might find your title a challenge to their knowledge, instead of seeing that you're interested in highlighting often overlooked things about JS.

For the love of God please don't put a giant headed person on your cover though. I've come to terms with every other book series having a positive quality with the exception of "Head First" and their distorted human cover photos. /rant

We all have our ticks when it comes to books and advertising around things we love.

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#48

Post by AndrewDucker » Mon, Feb 16, 2015, 3:34 PM UTC

_getify wrote: post #46

AndrewDucker wrote: post #10

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

> each $20 I'm trying to work with O'Reilly to bring down the prices on the books a little bit. I always wanted them to be priced so that price wasn't a barrier to entry. As you can imagine, there's lots of intricate details which restrict what I can do with pricing. > none of them that big Hmmm... Page counts on the titles (so far) are: 65, 98, 176, 189, 296. The last book isn't finished yet, but I'm projecting it t…

Aaah - sorry, I hadn't realised that some of the books were much larger than the first two I looked at. $20 for a 300-page book is very good value!

I just looked at a couple, and it seemed like it was being split into small chunks (60 pages, 100 pages) as a way of selling more of them. Clearly I should have researched further!

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#49

Post by michaelbuddy » Mon, Feb 16, 2015, 3:36 PM UTC

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #42

imdsm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

I find the for Dummies books nearly unusable due to the evident required number of puns and homespun regular folks observations between every bit of actual technical info.

Yeah if For Dummies would just kill off the bad jokes it'd actually be easier to read. I don't like cringing through a book when I'm trying to learn something.

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#50

Post by brudgers » Mon, Feb 16, 2015, 3:37 PM UTC

semperfaux wrote: post #2

"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's easy to be a critic. On the internet it's even possible to be a popular critic on a topic by admitting that one hasn't even read the subject of the criticism. In the world of male tech, one can easily achieve top common in an HN thread exactly for judging a book by its cover.

Anyone who doesn't have imposter syndrome hasn't tried the exercises in TAoCP.