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> JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford I've been wondering lately, as I'm moving (back) into a JavaScript-heavy stack (it's been... 4-5 years for me

> JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford I've been wondering lately, as I'm moving (back) into a JavaScript-heavy stack (it's been... 4-5 years for me), is this book still relevant in the face of 12 years of JavaScript language development?

agentultra 6y ago
The code in it will still run and work but there are much better patterns and features now that help you write more succinct and less error-prone code. ES6 and ES7 are widely supported now and are much better languages IMO.
- scruple 6y ago
  Thanks, that's kind of what I thought. I recently, finally, took it off of my book shelf and stuffed it into a box in the garage, but it's been in the back of my mind a few times as I've been going through other resources. It's good for the historical understanding but I couldn't see it being terribly relevant today.
piyh 6y ago
As a noobie, Eloquent Javascript was much better for me than The Good Parts. The Good Parts was a book of how not to program, followed by the right way of doing it. Eloquent was a guided path to understanding the language without being shown all the dead ends. Knowing the dead ends and the history behind them is nice, but I spent a lot of brain power on the dead ends that Eloquent put towards better use. We're also talking a small book vs a tome of knowledge, but the philosophy is different regardless of size.
fidelramos 6y ago
Unless the book has had an updated edition it's missing all the ES6 good stuff. It was good to avoid the pitfalls of JavaScript in the past, but nowadays you should be using ES6, strict mode and, if that strikes your fancy, TypeScript.
squeaky-clean 6y ago
I personally never really liked that book even when it was new. It's good if you wanna get up and running with JS fast while coming from another language, and are forced to use JS in places but it's not the main language of your project. But it doesn't really give a strong foundation on understanding the language. It's more like "I know mainstream C-inspired languages, and JS often burns me with its weird quirks like how the this keyword works, I just want to avoid getting burned". But it doesn't really embrace JS itself, just sort of acknowledges that you will be forced to use it in the web so you may as well at least learn the "good" parts. It's still decent at that purpose, but for really strong competency in JS I can also vouch for the Eloquent JS book and the You Don't Know JS series (I've only read the first edition, a new edition is partially complete and available online).
- kqr 6y ago
  > it doesn't really embrace JS itself, just sort of acknowledges that you will be forced to use it in the web so you may as well at least learn the "good" parts. I'm sure you know this, so I'm just pointing it out for completeness sake: that was indeed the only sensible approach to JavaScript back when that book was written.

agentultra 6y ago

The code in it will still run and work but there are much better patterns and features now that help you write more succinct and less error-prone code. ES6 and ES7 are widely supported now and are much better languages IMO.

scruple 6y ago
Thanks, that's kind of what I thought. I recently, finally, took it off of my book shelf and stuffed it into a box in the garage, but it's been in the back of my mind a few times as I've been going through other resources. It's good for the historical understanding but I couldn't see it being terribly relevant today.

piyh 6y ago

As a noobie, Eloquent Javascript was much better for me than The Good Parts. The Good Parts was a book of how not to program, followed by the right way of doing it. Eloquent was a guided path to understanding the language without being shown all the dead ends. Knowing the dead ends and the history behind them is nice, but I spent a lot of brain power on the dead ends that Eloquent put towards better use. We're also talking a small book vs a tome of knowledge, but the philosophy is different regardless of size.

fidelramos 6y ago

Unless the book has had an updated edition it's missing all the ES6 good stuff. It was good to avoid the pitfalls of JavaScript in the past, but nowadays you should be using ES6, strict mode and, if that strikes your fancy, TypeScript.

squeaky-clean 6y ago

I personally never really liked that book even when it was new. It's good if you wanna get up and running with JS fast while coming from another language, and are forced to use JS in places but it's not the main language of your project. But it doesn't really give a strong foundation on understanding the language. It's more like "I know mainstream C-inspired languages, and JS often burns me with its weird quirks like how the this keyword works, I just want to avoid getting burned". But it doesn't really embrace JS itself, just sort of acknowledges that you will be forced to use it in the web so you may as well at least learn the "good" parts. It's still decent at that purpose, but for really strong competency in JS I can also vouch for the Eloquent JS book and the You Don't Know JS series (I've only read the first edition, a new edition is partially complete and available online).

kqr 6y ago
> it doesn't really embrace JS itself, just sort of acknowledges that you will be forced to use it in the web so you may as well at least learn the "good" parts. I'm sure you know this, so I'm just pointing it out for completeness sake: that was indeed the only sensible approach to JavaScript back when that book was written.