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Show HN: The JavaScript Way, a book for learning modern JavaScript from scratch

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Re: Show HN: The JavaScript Way, a book for learning modern JavaScript from scratch

#11

Post by feiss »

bpesquet wrote: post #2

Hi all, author here. Backstory: I'm a CS engineer/teacher and this book is a side project started in December 2016. You can read a bit more about it here: https://medium.com/@bpesquet/walk-this-javascript-way-e9c45a... . The writing process is now completed and I'm actively looking for feedback to make the book better. Any opinion or advice about content, pricing, or that hastily created Leanpub cover would be greatl…

I love it, very nice. Clean, modern, concise.

Are there plans for translating it in other languages? I'd love to have time to translate it to spanish, but almost no free time..

Re: Show HN: The JavaScript Way, a book for learning modern JavaScript from scratch

#12

Post by matthewvincent »

scarcitykillz wrote: post #4
bpesquet wrote: post #2

Hi all, author here. Backstory: I'm a CS engineer/teacher and this book is a side project started in December 2016. You can read a bit more about it here: https://medium.com/@bpesquet/walk-this-javascript-way-e9c45a... . The writing process is now completed and I'm actively looking for feedback to make the book better. Any opinion or advice about content, pricing, or that hastily created Leanpub cover would be greatl…

It's a great idea and I think the world does need a new book for pure JS. There was a book released about 10 years ago by the guy who wrote jQuery. It started with basic JS and went all the way through to advanced features. It really helped me master JS. Where I think that book is better then yours is that it focuses entirely on JS where as you spend a lot of time talking about http and the web works. Anyone reading…

I definitely wouldn't assume that a JS newbie knows the http fundamentals. That definitely wasn't the case for me when I started learning. You can get a lot done on the web without really understanding what you're doing.

Re: Show HN: The JavaScript Way, a book for learning modern JavaScript from scratch

#13

Post by blacksmith_tb »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #5

I just got home from teaching JavaScript to a room full of people who've never written a line of code in their life. This book is missing something critical that most intros to JavaScript overlook: How does the student set up the plumbing and run their code? It's amazing how much of a hump this is for many trying to get started. It also amazes me how oblivious most of us programmers are to it. "Just open Chrome Dev T…

I see there's a section on Environment Setup[1] though personally I might be tempted to just link to other tutorials instead (which the author also does, I see).

1: https://github.com/bpesquet/thejsway/blob/master/manuscript/...

Re: Show HN: The JavaScript Way, a book for learning modern JavaScript from scratch

#14

Post by dotnetkow »

Saw this on Reddit last night, poked around on a few pages. It's great! Love the movie list example on this page: https://github.com/bpesquet/thejsway/blob/master/manuscript/.... Going from "for" loops into map/filter/reduce concepts is an excellent way to teach!

Re: Show HN: The JavaScript Way, a book for learning modern JavaScript from scratch

#15

Post by axtscz »

feiss wrote: post #11
bpesquet wrote: post #2

Hi all, author here. Backstory: I'm a CS engineer/teacher and this book is a side project started in December 2016. You can read a bit more about it here: https://medium.com/@bpesquet/walk-this-javascript-way-e9c45a... . The writing process is now completed and I'm actively looking for feedback to make the book better. Any opinion or advice about content, pricing, or that hastily created Leanpub cover would be greatl…

I love it, very nice. Clean, modern, concise. Are there plans for translating it in other languages? I'd love to have time to translate it to spanish, but almost no free time..

I'd be willing to help with a Spanish translation as well.

Re: Show HN: The JavaScript Way, a book for learning modern JavaScript from scratch

#16

Post by mstade »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #5

I just got home from teaching JavaScript to a room full of people who've never written a line of code in their life. This book is missing something critical that most intros to JavaScript overlook: How does the student set up the plumbing and run their code? It's amazing how much of a hump this is for many trying to get started. It also amazes me how oblivious most of us programmers are to it. "Just open Chrome Dev T…

I came here to write this exactly. This looks like a nice resource, the tone is friendly and inviting and the topics are introduced at a nice pace. Then I thought about my cousin who I've been trying to teach to program a bit. She's interested and she's smart, she understands how things work at a conceptual level and she can design an algorithm. But if I just give her some JS and ask her to run it she'll stare blankly right back at me.

The introduction needs to talk about prerequisites, setting up for following along way before getting into the topics. Right now it's just a (broken) link to the appendix, which I don't think is good enough.

I like this overall though, it's good stuff. I'm going to try and find some time for a PR to change the introduction into something I think would be better for a newbie, and if translations are welcome I might just work on a Swedish version.

Re: Show HN: The JavaScript Way, a book for learning modern JavaScript from scratch

#17

Post by mgkimsal »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #13
ryanmarsh wrote: post #5

I just got home from teaching JavaScript to a room full of people who've never written a line of code in their life. This book is missing something critical that most intros to JavaScript overlook: How does the student set up the plumbing and run their code? It's amazing how much of a hump this is for many trying to get started. It also amazes me how oblivious most of us programmers are to it. "Just open Chrome Dev T…

I see there's a section on Environment Setup[1] though personally I might be tempted to just link to other tutorials instead (which the author also does, I see). 1: https://github.com/bpesquet/thejsway/blob/master/manuscript/...

> though personally I might be tempted to just link to other tutorials instead

short term, perhaps, but longer term, keeping it in one voice, and making sure those links don't change/disappear is valuable.

Re: Show HN: The JavaScript Way, a book for learning modern JavaScript from scratch

#18

Post by specialist »

bpesquet wrote: post #2

Hi all, author here. Backstory: I'm a CS engineer/teacher and this book is a side project started in December 2016. You can read a bit more about it here: https://medium.com/@bpesquet/walk-this-javascript-way-e9c45a... . The writing process is now completed and I'm actively looking for feedback to make the book better. Any opinion or advice about content, pricing, or that hastily created Leanpub cover would be greatl…

Nice. Thanks for sharing.

Bravo for burrito recipe. I'm convinced I became a programmer in 4th grade. Our creative writing assignment was instructions for making a peanut butter & jelly sandwich. Then our teacher followed our instructions literally. Hilarity ensued.

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I think the Intro's link to the local env setup in the appendix is broken.

Anymore, I always check the colophon first, then decide to proceed.

I applaud the online option.

I'm dubious of the local option. "Install the latest XYZ" will bite you (your students). Especially with JavaScript and nodejs. Mayflies live longer.

For future, should tutorials start with Docker images, or scripts, or virtualbox images, or something, to mitigate digital drift? Hoping other commenters will share their ideas, experiences.

Re: Show HN: The JavaScript Way, a book for learning modern JavaScript from scratch

#19

Post by leeoniya »

matthewvincent wrote: post #12
scarcitykillz wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a great idea and I think the world does need a new book for pure JS. There was a book released about 10 years ago by the guy who wrote jQuery. It started with basic JS and went all the way through to advanced features. It really helped me master JS. Where I think that book is better then yours is that it focuses entirely on JS where as you spend a lot of time talking about http and the web works. Anyone reading…

I definitely wouldn't assume that a JS newbie knows the http fundamentals. That definitely wasn't the case for me when I started learning. You can get a lot done on the web without really understanding what you're doing.

i wrote this a few days ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/Frontend/comments/6pconk/a_simple_s...
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