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You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

youdontknowjs.com

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Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#51

Post by _getify »

sosuke wrote: post #47
_getify wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> For the love of God please don't put a giant headed person on your cover though

These are what the covers of all the books in the series look like:

http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920026327.do

------

side note: my kickstarter for the books, 2 years ago, playfully used the bald head image to catch people's attention (never the intended branding). I soon afer got a friendly lawyer takedown notice from the folks who own the game. We worked it out, and the new branding was born. :)

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#52

Post by Tad_Ghostly »

_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…

Thank you for showing a commitment to getting useful knowledge published at reasonable prices. And of course, there isn't anything more reasonable than "free on github". I'm excited to pick through these books to become a stronger javascript programmer.

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#53

Post by ebbv »

brudgers wrote: post #50
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 .

> It's easy to be a critic.

In fact it's so easy that you can make a snide comment criticizing someone else's criticism and it will do really well if you throw in some unnecessary and ridiculous "male dominated" comment.

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#54

Post by alanning »

_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...

I'd suggest, "The Tough Parts", as you mention in the preface.

Not sure who your target market is but as a professional developer who writes javascript daily, "The Tough Parts", piques my curiosity and sounds like an interesting challenge. "You Don't Know JS" evokes a more negative reaction.

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#55

Post by _getify »

alanning wrote: post #54
_getify wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I'd suggest, "The Tough Parts", as you mention in the preface. Not sure who your target market is but as a professional developer who writes javascript daily, "The Tough Parts", piques my curiosity and sounds like an interesting challenge. "You Don't Know JS" evokes a more negative reaction.

fyi: there were some who felt that it would detract from or dillute the brand "the good parts", which is also an oreilly title.

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#56

Post by acjohnson55 »

Here's the thing, I do know Javascript pretty well after reading Crockford [1], Braithwaite [2], and Javascript Garden [3]. Much of the behavior of the language is simply too subtle and failure-prone to bother with, especially when working on projects that aren't composed entirely of world-class JS devs (e.g. every project ever). In its full expressiveness, Javascript yields code that simply does not do what you think it does, unless you've memorized the 6 books of material documenting counterintuitive behavior.

I'm with the prevailing industry consensus, that Javascript has some brilliant parts to it, and when used judiciously, and with the right abstractions, it's not so bad. But some of the more subtle concepts in Javascript, logical consistency aside, simply don't make for great programming.

[1] http://javascript.crockford.com/

[2] http://leanpub.com/javascript-allonge

[3] https://bonsaiden.github.io/JavaScript-Garden/

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#57

Post by semperfaux »

_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...

Sorry, but I think it should be clear from my comment that your title is indeed putting people off of reading your work at all. I don't doubt that it's worth reading, but I think you should consider that the title itself, accuracy aside, is dissuading more people than just me from reading your work.

The point isn't the quality of your work. It's your hook that's failing at least some of us to the point that you are potentially missing out on part of your target audience by default.

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#58

Post by _getify »

semperfaux wrote: post #57
_getify wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Sorry, but I think it should be clear from my comment that your title is indeed putting people off of reading your work at all. I don't doubt that it's worth reading, but I think you should consider that the title itself, accuracy aside, is dissuading more people than just me from reading your work. The point isn't the quality of your work. It's your hook that's failing at least some of us to the point that you are p…

I understand and appreciate your feedback. Unfortunately, given that most of the series is done and half of them are already in print, it's too late to change.

I did have lengthy discussions with my book editor about the title and its potential to be off-putting to some. We wrangled with the decision awhile, but ultimately came to the conclusion that most would find it a mix/balance of playful, attention grabbing (in a sea of "JS: The Handy Guide" type titles), and challenging.

The title itself is supposed to be equal parts a joke and a serious commentary on what I consider to be a disturbing trend in JS specifically, which is either a false sense of confidence or (worse) an apathy to not care about what is not known.

Again, thank you for your thoughtful response and your feedback. I do regret that it's hit you the way it has. Perhaps at some point you may give it another shot.

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#59

Post by rog3r »

_getify wrote: post #58
semperfaux wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but I think it should be clear from my comment that your title is indeed putting people off of reading your work at all. I don't doubt that it's worth reading, but I think you should consider that the title itself, accuracy aside, is dissuading more people than just me from reading your work. The point isn't the quality of your work. It's your hook that's failing at least some of us to the point that you are p…

I understand and appreciate your feedback. Unfortunately, given that most of the series is done and half of them are already in print, it's too late to change. I did have lengthy discussions with my book editor about the title and its potential to be off-putting to some. We wrangled with the decision awhile, but ultimately came to the conclusion that most would find it a mix/balance of playful, attention grabbing (in…

really there are people who complains about the name of the book? it's clearly a joke.

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#60

Post by billyhoffman »

ekidd wrote: post #45
_getify wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hack…

This. "Technical arcana" is exactly right.

Your code should rarely be clever or rely on the the weird dark corner-case cruft of a language. Too often I see JS code written like an entry in the Obfuscated C contest. Yes, that code can work, but don't do that.

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