JavaScript Books
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Javascript The Definitive Guide 7th edition by David Flanagan
JavaScript is the programming language of the web and is used by more software developers today than any other programming language. For nearly 25 years this best seller has been the go-to guide for JavaScript programmers. The seventh edition is fully updated to cover the 2020 version of JavaScript, and new chapters cover classes, modules, iterators, generators, Promises, async/await, and metaprogramming. You’ll find illuminating and engaging example code throughout.
This book is for programmers who want to learn JavaScript and for web developers who want to take their understanding and mastery to the next level. It begins by explaining the JavaScript language itself, in detail, from the bottom up. It then builds on that foundation to cover the web platform and Node.js.
Topics include:
- Types, values, variables, expressions, operators, statements, objects, and arrays
- Functions, classes, modules, iterators, generators, Promises, and async/await
- JavaScript’s standard library: data structures, regular expressions, JSON, i18n, etc.
- The web platform: documents, components, graphics, networking, storage, and threads
- Node.js: buffers, files, streams, threads, child processes, web clients, and web servers
- Tools and language extensions that professional JavaScript developers rely on
Murach's Modern JavaScript by Mary Delamater
According to StackOverflow's 2023 Developer Survey, JavaScript is the most popular language in the world. JavaScript provides the functionality for a web page. As a result, it's a critical part of most websites, including heavily-trafficked sites like Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Amazon. That's why every web developer should know how to use JavaScript.
JavaScript used to be hard to learn due to some quirks in its early versions that were difficult to understand. But now, with Murach's Modern JavaScript, you can skip over the explanations of the quirky old features and jump straight to the best practices of modern JavaScript. This makes it easier than ever to learn how to use JavaScript to add functionality to your web pages.
To make that possible, section 1 of this book presents a seven-chapter crash course in JavaScript. Because it lets you set your own pace, this section works for those who are completely new to programming as well as those who are already experienced programmers. The only perquisite is a basic understanding of HTML and CSS. When you finish this section, you'll be able to write, test, and debug JavaScript apps of your own.
Then, section 2 presents the essential JavaScript skills. That includes showing you how to create object-oriented apps by defining custom objects and using ES modules to organize them. When you finish this section, you'll be ready to learn other JavaScript frameworks like React and Angular.
Next, section 3 presents some professional skills that you can learn as you need them. These skills include using the Fetch API with Ajax to work with a sever asynchronously, using Node.js to run JavaScript on a server, and using canvas to create drawings and animations.
JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford
Most programming languages contain good and bad parts, but JavaScript has more than its share of the bad, having been developed and released in a hurry before it could be refined. This authoritative book scrapes away these bad features to reveal a subset of JavaScript that's more reliable, readable, and maintainable than the language as a whole—a subset you can use to create truly extensible and efficient code.
Considered the JavaScript expert by many people in the development community, author Douglas crockford identifies the abundance of good ideas that make JavaScript an outstanding object-oriented programming language-ideas such as functions, loose typing, dynamic objects, and an expressive object literal notation. Unfortunately, these good ideas are mixed in with bad and downright awful ideas, like a programming model based on global variables.
When Java applets failed, JavaScript became the language of the web by default, making its popularity almost completely independent of its qualities as a programming language. In , crockford finally digs through the steaming pile of good intentions and blunders to give you a detailed look at all the genuinely elegant parts of JavaScript, including:
- syntax
- objects
- functions
- inheritance
- arrays
- methods
- style
- beautiful features
The real beauty? As you move ahead with the subset of JavaScript that this book presents, you'll also sidestep the need to unlearn all the bad parts. Of course, if you want to find out more about the bad parts and how to use them badly, simply consult any other JavaScript book.
With, you'll discover a beautiful, elegant, lightweight and highly expressive language that lets you create effective code, whether you're managing object libraries or just trying to get ajax to run fast. If you develop sites or applications for the web, this book is an absolute must.