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"But while Mr. Crockford, who is immensely knowledgeable in JavaScript, is seen as the Einstein of the JavaScript world, his book, The Good Parts, is not a good
by gnosis 14y ago
"But while Mr. Crockford, who is immensely knowledgeable in JavaScript, is seen as the Einstein of the JavaScript world, his book, The Good Parts, is not a good JavaScript book for beginners."
Why not?
Also, does he mean it's not good for people who are just starting to learn programming? Or also for experienced programmers who are starting to learn Javascript?
What would be a good book to start with for experienced programmers just starting to learn Javascript?
- fmsf 14y agoJust avoid trying to explain to a newbie that what closures are and that you can pass functions around. That normaly === "mind blow"
- Tloewald 14y agoI suspect it's more likely to be "mind blow" for experienced programmers of less dynamic languages than novice programmers. Indeed, if you start by declaring functions as variables you're halfway there. The way you pass around functions in, say, PHP (or more accurately, the way PHP fakes it by using syntax sugar for eval) is a lot more confusing.
- damncabbage 14y agoPHP is terrible, but the following now is valid PHP: $addOne = function($a){ return $a + 1 }; $result = array_map($addOne, array(1,2,3)); // now [2,3,4] Or: // Reference to intval() function. $result = array_map(intval, array('1','2','a'));
- richardofyork 14y agoImmediately after the sentence you quoted above, the article went on to say: "Crockford’s book does not explain the JavaScript concepts in a thorough, clear, easily digestible form."
- jrajav 14y agoI too found that to be pretty dubious advice. I try not to recommend people any books or tutorials unless I've seen it and it's clearly a good beginner's resource or I personally found it to be invaluable when I, myself, was starting out on a language. Crockford's book is the latter. It doesn't teach you the raw basics, sure, but there are many resources for that (I'd recommend Eloquent: http://eloquentjavascript.net/contents.html http://eloquentjavascript.net/contents.html), and Javascript has fairly simple C-like syntax anyway, so it's not hard to pick up tangentially. The Good Parts gets you thinking about the language in a different way - that, plus the annotated spec (http://es5.github.com/ http://es5.github.com/) really sets you on the right road to mastery.
- dasil003 14y agoBecause Crockford's viewpoint in the hands of a beginner is at best dogma. I think you need a solid base understanding of Javascript and some experience under your belt before The Good Parts comes into its own.
- why-el 14y agoRecommending Javascript the Good Parts to Javascript beginners is like recommending Effective Java to Java beginners. It is assumed you know some js/java and preferably have written some of it so that the patterns and antipatterns described in both books (Crockford's to a lesser degree, it's after all about the good parts) would make sense.
- doktrin 14y ago>Recommending Javascript the Good Parts to Javascript beginners is like recommending Effective Java to Java beginners. Or, like recommending K&R C to beginners (C beginners, but even worse to programming beginners). There are a handful of books out there that, IMHO, are vastly mis-recommended, and I would agree that JS:The Good Parts is one of them.
- jamesbritt 14y agoWeird. I learned C from K&R and found it helpful and easy to follow. I don't think I had much coding experience either beyond c64 basic.
- bjoe_lewis 14y agoI learned from K&R too, and seriously, no book ever told me how closely arrays and pointers were related (atleast, whatever books I read), as TCPL. I don't find anything wrong with recommending it to 'programmers' who begin C.
- cjg_ 14y agoK&R is great! For a really deep understanding how pointer and arrays are related I also recommend Expert C Programming by Peter van der Linden (http://www.amazon.com/Expert-Programming-Peter-van-Linden/dp/0131774298 http://www.amazon.com/Expert-Programming-Peter-van-Linden/dp...)
- Joeri 14y agoI found K&R C to be refreshingly easy to follow, but that isn't saying much because prior to that I had learned C++ from Stroustrup's book (which I had to read three times cover-to-cover before I finally understood what in the world he was talking about). Any book would seem easy to follow after that pan-galactic gargle blaster. And now I'm sure someone will respond saying that they found Stroustrup's book remarkably straightforward. To each his own I suppose.
- stuartmemo 14y agoI love Crockford, but I can't stand the railroad diagrams used throughout the whole book. Something in my head just doesn't click with them.
- tlarkworthy 14y agoThat book is the only one I read. It was quite good for telling me the language features like object notation. But did not really help me get in the mindset of asynchronous callbacks. I learn that myself and I eventually discovered Deffered in JQuery and the rest is history (now I use angular.js)