Eloquent JavaScript 4th edition (2024)

Post by lost_womble » Thu, Mar 07, 2024, 3:11 PM UTC

OmarShehata wrote: post #5

dcre wrote: post #4

This is my favorite book about JS, and I always recommend it to people. It occurs to me for the first time that the lack of TypeScript might be a problem, because if I’m making recommendations to someone learning, I am definitely going to recommend they write TS instead of JS. On the other hand it may actually be helpful to learn the concepts in this book without the additional syntax overhead of type annotations, pl…

I very much concur that it is better NOT to introduce TS when explaining JS fundamentals. I've seen smart engineers with a C++ background get tripped up on and very confused working with TS, because it's not clear to them what concepts are "language fundamentals" and what concepts are "the TS transpiler". (Like expecting that just because you declared something as type X, that it guarantees at runtime it will always…

Post by myvoiceismypass » Thu, Mar 07, 2024, 3:12 PM UTC

OmarShehata wrote: post #5

dcre wrote: post #4

This is my favorite book about JS, and I always recommend it to people. It occurs to me for the first time that the lack of TypeScript might be a problem, because if I’m making recommendations to someone learning, I am definitely going to recommend they write TS instead of JS. On the other hand it may actually be helpful to learn the concepts in this book without the additional syntax overhead of type annotations, pl…

I very much concur that it is better NOT to introduce TS when explaining JS fundamentals. I've seen smart engineers with a C++ background get tripped up on and very confused working with TS, because it's not clear to them what concepts are "language fundamentals" and what concepts are "the TS transpiler". (Like expecting that just because you declared something as type X, that it guarantees at runtime it will always…

Post by begueradj » Thu, Mar 07, 2024, 3:15 PM UTC

greenie_beans wrote: post #9

this book taught me javascript! great book, highly recommend it.

Post by steve_rambo » Thu, Mar 07, 2024, 3:17 PM UTC

DarkNova6 wrote: post #10

OmarShehata wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much concur that it is better NOT to introduce TS when explaining JS fundamentals. I've seen smart engineers with a C++ background get tripped up on and very confused working with TS, because it's not clear to them what concepts are "language fundamentals" and what concepts are "the TS transpiler". (Like expecting that just because you declared something as type X, that it guarantees at runtime it will always…

What helped me understand the Runtime behaviour of TS is to understand that TS doesn't actually have strong typing. If it was named "LintScript", its name would be much closer to the truth.

Post by whiterknight » Thu, Mar 07, 2024, 3:19 PM UTC

epolanski wrote: post #16

diggan wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am definitely going to recommend they write TS instead of JS Why is that? If you want them to learn JS, teach/recommend them to learn JS? Compile-to-JavaScript languages come and go, but JavaScript has remained. First learning vanilla JavaScript makes sense, and then add TS on top if you really have to. At the very least they'll be prepared for when TypeScript goes out of favor.

Because TypeScript is the de facto standard way of writing JavaScript for most of the industry and it has killed all of the other compile-to-js languages. The chances of it going out of favour are very slim, there's a giant ecosystem built on it and the language is very well loved by devs (should be second only to Rust). Microsoft has 50 people on payroll working only on TS. Any competitor needs a gargantuan investme…