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

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#81

Post by uxp » Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 1:47 AM UTC

_getify wrote: post #55

alanning wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Honestly, I don't care what the title is, the books are great. I've recommended them a number of times as newer resources than "the good parts" and raganwald's, and not one person has asked if I thought I was implying that they were dumb. If anything, the title serves as a compliment, since anything I do not know is something that I can learn. If you know everything already, then why are you looking at books which serve to teach?

That said, from a marketing perspective, they've got a great unique cover and a solid series title. If more than the original 5 come around in the future, they'll be easy to identify.

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#82

Post by orangecat » Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 2:29 AM UTC

woah wrote: post #80

rtpg wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you try to combine object methods that use 'this' with functional programming-style code, you're in for a bad surprise

Yea, when people try to rebuild all the fanciful embellishments of classic OOP GUI programming in JS, they're going to have a hard time. Unfortunately I've had to maintain this kind of code in the past. Don't use 'this'. I'm afraid that the addition of the 'class' keyword in es6 will make this tendency worse in some programmers. Along with block scoping, it's a feature lobbied for by people who don't actually code mu…

And that's JavaScript's fundamental problem: it's full of attractive nuisances that have the nasty property of silently doing the wrong thing. 'this', 0=='0'==false==[]!=[], global variables by default, objects that are almost-but-not-quite maps, for-in-oops-forgot-hasOwnProperty, etc, etc.

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#83

Post by billyhoffman » Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 1:09 PM UTC

_getify wrote: post #62

billyhoffman wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The books point all the arcane points of the language so that the reader can understand them. They're also full of commentary like "never do this". Rather than most books which gloss over the "bad parts", which prevents people from fuller learning and leaves them to their own devices when they run across that stuff in the real world, YDKJS covers all the parts, and tries to use the deeper understanding as a tool and…

I never once mentioned your books Kyle. I actually enjoy the parts that I've read. I was making a broader point that I have witnessed with the JS community: using technical arcana in production code as if it was a good thing. Just one example: https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/issues/3057

Re: You Don't Know JavaScript Book Series

#84

Post by yowmamasita » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 6:21 AM UTC

michaelchisari wrote: post #72

colund wrote: post #14

I posted this link after having read the author's comment to a one star review on Amazon: "Kyle Simpson8 months ago Report Abuse I can assure you, my goal of splitting up the content into a book series had ZERO to do with making more money. It's actually quite the opposite. One of the things I hate the most about tech books is that I spend $35-50 on a big book of which there's only a few chapters I actually care abou…

I'll be honest, I'm working through a React book right now, and there's so many additional subject chapters that, while useful, would be better off spun off into their own books. I found the first 2/3 of the book immensely useful, but now it feels like I'm slogging through to finish it (just for the sake of finishing it). Maybe splitting things up into very self-contained contexts makes a lot more sense than writing…

Will you release a version for those who want the whole compilation for a smaller price?