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Eloquent JavaScript 4th edition (2024)

eloquentjavascript.net

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Re: Eloquent JavaScript 4th edition (2024)

#41

Post by davidroetzel »

begueradj wrote: post #15
greenie_beans wrote: post #9

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

I agree. Have you also read "JavaScript: The Good Parts" ?

"JavaScript: The Good Parts" was a great and a very important book back in the day. I am sure it inspired many of the improvements JavaScript has seen since then. But as it has seen these improvements, and as they were many indeed, I am not sure the book is still as relevant as it once was. Or to put it differently: There are many more good parts to JS these days compared to when the book was released :)

Re: Eloquent JavaScript 4th edition (2024)

#42

Post by DenverSWE »

svat wrote: post #14

I love this book, even since its first edition. It's very clear even on elementary stuff, e.g. see the section on bindings/variables: https://eloquentjavascript.net/02_program_structure.html#h-l... — avoids the pitfall of thinking of variables as “boxes”. I was trying to find what's new in the 4th edition, and following links from the author's website https://marijnhaverbeke.nl/ found this on Mastodon ( https://masto…

Looks as if there will still be a paperback version released in the future as well for anyone that prefers that format.

I don't work in JS at all professionally but this book has intrigued me for a while at this point after seeing it recommended so often. I think I'll pick up a copy once the paperback is released.

Re: Eloquent JavaScript 4th edition (2024)

#43

Post by ricardobeat »

svat wrote: post #14

I love this book, even since its first edition. It's very clear even on elementary stuff, e.g. see the section on bindings/variables: https://eloquentjavascript.net/02_program_structure.html#h-l... — avoids the pitfall of thinking of variables as “boxes”. I was trying to find what's new in the 4th edition, and following links from the author's website https://marijnhaverbeke.nl/ found this on Mastodon ( https://masto…

It's a great explanation, but I've never heard the term 'binding' used to describe variables. It's usually reserved to function binding or bridge APIs like the DOM.

The tricky thing is that "boxes" are the right abstraction for primitive values. After that you need to explain how references work, and that's pretty much the same 'tentacle' concept. This method spares the reader one step, but might cause confusion once they face problems that require that understanding.

Re: Eloquent JavaScript 4th edition (2024)

#44

Post by veggieWHITES »

>The field of programming is young and still developing rapidly, and it is varied enough to have room for wildly different approaches.

This was an interesting line of thought to digest. He's right, of course. Programming is probably still in it's infancy.

Studying and learning about programming however, can make you believe it's some ancient art mastered by the giants of our recent past, the perfection of which is never to be surpassed again.

Re: Eloquent JavaScript 4th edition (2024)

#45

Post by rglover »

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…

It's better if they learn the core language and then graduate to TypeScript (if at all, as there's active discussion of adding type annotations to the core language [1]).

An anecdote: I was sold a similar story on CoffeeScript back in the day, stressed myself out learning it, only to discard it a couple years later. TS won't have an identical fate as its shepherded by Microsoft, but eventually it will go the way of the dodo (whereas core JS will still be humming along).

[1] https://youtu.be/SdV9Xy0E4CM?feature=shared&t=380

Re: Eloquent JavaScript 4th edition (2024)

#46

Post by fourside »

samtho wrote: post #38

This is, in my opinion, the book to use to learn JavaScript at more than a surface level. The only other materials I recommend as much (but for a different level of learner) are the “You don’t know JavaScript” in-depth book series. In 2015, I was consulting for a distance learning program, administered by a major California University, that wanted to replace their current textbook (one of those “Head First” O’Reilly…

[dead]

Re: Eloquent JavaScript 4th edition (2024)

#48

Post by diggan »

wk_end wrote: post #36
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.

TypeScript isn't really a "compile-to-JavaScript" language in the same way that, say, Rescript is. Modulo a few corner cases (e.g. enums) which are now considered anti-features, TypeScript has the exact same runtime semantics as JavaScript - you can (almost) convert TypeScript to JavaScript just by stripping away the type annotations (and, if various ECMAScript proposals go through, you won't even need to do even tha…

I guess by that same definition, Coffeescript isn't a compile-to-JavaScript language either, as it has the same semantics as vanilla JavaScript?

I think that's besides the point. My point was more that people who are supposed to learn JavaScript, should do so by learning vanilla JavaScript first, then they can move on to learning whatever is currently hyped by the zeitgeist (which happens to be TypeScript currently).

Re: Eloquent JavaScript 4th edition (2024)

#49

Post by pier25 »

ricardobeat wrote: post #43
svat wrote: post #14

I love this book, even since its first edition. It's very clear even on elementary stuff, e.g. see the section on bindings/variables: https://eloquentjavascript.net/02_program_structure.html#h-l... — avoids the pitfall of thinking of variables as “boxes”. I was trying to find what's new in the 4th edition, and following links from the author's website https://marijnhaverbeke.nl/ found this on Mastodon ( https://masto…

It's a great explanation, but I've never heard the term 'binding' used to describe variables. It's usually reserved to function binding or bridge APIs like the DOM. The tricky thing is that "boxes" are the right abstraction for primitive values. After that you need to explain how references work, and that's pretty much the same 'tentacle' concept. This method spares the reader one step, but might cause confusion once…

"binding" seems like a more casual term for memory pointer. I guess if people are just getting started with programming it make sense to simplify things a bit.

Re: Eloquent JavaScript 4th edition (2024)

#50

Post by arrowleaf »

svat wrote: post #14

I love this book, even since its first edition. It's very clear even on elementary stuff, e.g. see the section on bindings/variables: https://eloquentjavascript.net/02_program_structure.html#h-l... — avoids the pitfall of thinking of variables as “boxes”. I was trying to find what's new in the 4th edition, and following links from the author's website https://marijnhaverbeke.nl/ found this on Mastodon ( https://masto…

The book is actually maintained on GitHub too, https://github.com/marijnh/Eloquent-JavaScript.

When I was just starting out I read this book and noticed a small mistake, I was really proud that one of my first contributions to any open source project was a PR to this repo.

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