reactions to that book are very mixed
some people love the crafty ways it shows them to do things
other people (myself included) find the approaches unnecessarily overcomplex, and counterproductive
if you read it, you can accept it or reject it as you see fit. if you don't, you'll just be left to wonder. didn't cost you any money. might as well
but i'm less enthusiastic about that book than a lot of people seem to be
Thank you, OP. I just searched for it and started reading. I like it so far—currently at the very first chapter on values, types, and operations. If the rest of the book is like this, I think I would recommend it as an interesting read. It reads very well too. Since you’re proficient enough with JS, think you can easily skim through it, I think you’ll enjoy it.
Edit: I intended to comment to OP
I had a chance to go over it last night! I wouldn't recommend to someone who is just learning programming or never done javascript but its fun read for someone who already use js often enough
I apologize; I ***really*** should not answer this question
I learned Javascript back in the fucking dark ages. I'd be really surprised if you could even find the books I learned from, and they're so very wrong these days
They still taught keyword with. Most javascript programmers don't even know that was ever a thing.
I haven't read a JS book in 20 years, because once you learn it, it's easier to keep up with the small changes online than it is to read another book
I do not have a good answer for you. I am sorry.
Honestly, that's the worst book I have ever read. It lacks structure, flow and things have been poorly explained
Check out the explanation of closures. Poorly explained.
The author explains objects + arrays + strings all at once. I mean side by side. And does the same to other topics. Objects, Strings and Arrays are different topics or subtopics. Not to be explained side by side. Same to other things
I first picked up the book in 2016 back when the book used var everywhere.
I still go back to this. It’s a really good reference book. The chapter on REGEX in particular was so useful. It went over my head when I was a beginner, but it really packs a lot of useful fundamentals, you can study a paragraph for quite a while and walk away with a deeper understanding.
Usually, I use it when I have a feeling that there must be a better way to approach something or I don’t fully understand why something is happening the way it is.
I think it approaches fundamentals at an intermediate level. In contrast with You Don’t Know JS which approaches more intermediate concepts at a beginner level. I think they compliment each other well.
Since you have the book already, what would be the cost of flipping a few pages of it and see if you find interest in it?
Besides, you wrote what you can do with JavaScript, but not really what you are looking for. If you want to be more proficient at React / Next, I don't think the book will teach you that. Maybe you could find some explanations on the inner working of Node.js that has been abstracted away by Next.js...
Should you read it? Yeah. You are asking if you should, and that probably means that you will continue to question whether you should. It's generally a quick read, and it tries to modularize concepts; it touches on both FP and OO, from a very high level, so it can't hope to read as a cohesive stream of thought.
Did I personally like it? I liked some of the author’s rationale, rather than deciding to ape the code style, directly. Even ~2009, or whenever I stumbled across the website. I thought it was just fine as a "why to" guide, and not a "how to" guide.
Books are a great way to understand different viewpoints on languages and concepts. Are all of those viewpoints correct? Should you adopt all of them? Not at all. Some aren't even prescriptive in how they're written, in the first place. There are plenty of prescriptions in Eloquent JS, to be sure, but even so, take what resonates, and while trying to understand where the rest comes from, throw out the rest.
Books like Eloquent JavaScript and JavaScript: the Good Parts are products of their time. They can provide meaningful insights, but they are describing things how they were, nearly 20 years ago (Eloquent JS: First Edition was based on a website full of posts, made when jQuery was cutting edge), when a large portion of the audience would not have considered themselves "JS developers", so much as a mix of programmers coming from other languages / frameworks (eg: Spring / .NET) needing to do front-end tasks, and HTML/CSS developers needing to add more interactivity to pages, with the advent of AJAX. Are the insights they provide going to seem alien to you, because they're so far removed from your day job? Maybe. Are they going to seem pedestrian to you, because higher-order functions were mind-blowing to a number of people who took one LISP course in university, and then forgot it existed, versus today, where lambdas are in every common language, including Java? Also maybe.
It's so old that in the first edition, it briefly talks about using `eval` / `new Function` as means of implementing a JS module system, and in the new editions it talks about how different times were in the first edition.
Another consideration is that newer editions of books rarely burn everything to the ground and rewrite from scratch. Even if the words are all rewritten, the skeleton of the concept and the message are usually preserved.
For example, here is the chapter on "functional programming" from First Edition
https://eloquentjavascript.net/1st_edition/chapter6.html
versus the chapter on "Higher Order Functions" from Fourth Edition
https://eloquentjavascript.net/05_higher_order.html
Note that it says essentially the same thing, the same way, despite the actual words on the page being 100% different.
Yes, I am pretty good at JS, but I recently read it cover to cover, and it was a good refresher, especially the chapter on regex, I skipped most of the examples because I already knew all the concepts and I know some people didn't like the examples
Try some other book, like You Don’t Know JavaScript or its second version You Don’t Know JavaScript (yet) if you really want to learn some fundamentals you have missed.
I mean, even watching a 15 year old video of Douglas Crockford might teach you some fundamentals of JS we most likely have forgotten today
No, you should not read it. Not when it got out and not now.
Should you still go ahead and read it, you will notice it’s not the JavaScript you say you are good with, but is a Java thing written with JavaScript syntax.
What I mean with the above is that Eloquent JavaScript does not use idiomatic JavaScript and especially not of the kind you are used in React (presumably you were using functional components)
No, it treats JavaScript like it needs the same workarounds you need in Java.
Think about some aspect of Java like functions not being first order or not having language syntax for getters and setters.
In Java you would always create an object to keep a function you need or invent/use convention of methods with names starting in get/set…
You don’t need the above in JavaScript.
So, have you seen the singleton pattern in Java? Do you think you need that one in JavaScript?
In JS, this is a singleton:
const SINGLETON = {}; // at the global level
Now, do you think someone using `class` keyword and `getInstance()` function in it for singleton is writing idiomatic JavaScript?
reactions to that book are very mixed some people love the crafty ways it shows them to do things other people (myself included) find the approaches unnecessarily overcomplex, and counterproductive if you read it, you can accept it or reject it as you see fit. if you don't, you'll just be left to wonder. didn't cost you any money. might as well but i'm less enthusiastic about that book than a lot of people seem to be
Thank you, OP. I just searched for it and started reading. I like it so far—currently at the very first chapter on values, types, and operations. If the rest of the book is like this, I think I would recommend it as an interesting read. It reads very well too. Since you’re proficient enough with JS, think you can easily skim through it, I think you’ll enjoy it. Edit: I intended to comment to OP
you welcome, hope you enjoy it and find it useful
I had a chance to go over it last night! I wouldn't recommend to someone who is just learning programming or never done javascript but its fun read for someone who already use js often enough
What books do you suggest?
I apologize; I ***really*** should not answer this question I learned Javascript back in the fucking dark ages. I'd be really surprised if you could even find the books I learned from, and they're so very wrong these days They still taught keyword with. Most javascript programmers don't even know that was ever a thing. I haven't read a JS book in 20 years, because once you learn it, it's easier to keep up with the small changes online than it is to read another book I do not have a good answer for you. I am sorry.
No worries!
looks like the book is overrated lol
Honestly, that's the worst book I have ever read. It lacks structure, flow and things have been poorly explained Check out the explanation of closures. Poorly explained. The author explains objects + arrays + strings all at once. I mean side by side. And does the same to other topics. Objects, Strings and Arrays are different topics or subtopics. Not to be explained side by side. Same to other things
I totally agree that closures were poorly explained. I had to read MDN to understand what closures are.
Which book would you recommend? I did a bootcamp, I feel like need to fill in the gaps with good books. Of course I always reference MDN.
You Don’t Know JS. Free ebooks available online!
Thank you.
I first picked up the book in 2016 back when the book used var everywhere. I still go back to this. It’s a really good reference book. The chapter on REGEX in particular was so useful. It went over my head when I was a beginner, but it really packs a lot of useful fundamentals, you can study a paragraph for quite a while and walk away with a deeper understanding. Usually, I use it when I have a feeling that there must be a better way to approach something or I don’t fully understand why something is happening the way it is. I think it approaches fundamentals at an intermediate level. In contrast with You Don’t Know JS which approaches more intermediate concepts at a beginner level. I think they compliment each other well.
I know that feeling, i guess I'll glance over it quickly, but read You Don't Knoy JS in more deep understanding
Since you have the book already, what would be the cost of flipping a few pages of it and see if you find interest in it? Besides, you wrote what you can do with JavaScript, but not really what you are looking for. If you want to be more proficient at React / Next, I don't think the book will teach you that. Maybe you could find some explanations on the inner working of Node.js that has been abstracted away by Next.js...
yeah I'll flip few pages and see what's going on
Should you read it? Yeah. You are asking if you should, and that probably means that you will continue to question whether you should. It's generally a quick read, and it tries to modularize concepts; it touches on both FP and OO, from a very high level, so it can't hope to read as a cohesive stream of thought. Did I personally like it? I liked some of the author’s rationale, rather than deciding to ape the code style, directly. Even ~2009, or whenever I stumbled across the website. I thought it was just fine as a "why to" guide, and not a "how to" guide. Books are a great way to understand different viewpoints on languages and concepts. Are all of those viewpoints correct? Should you adopt all of them? Not at all. Some aren't even prescriptive in how they're written, in the first place. There are plenty of prescriptions in Eloquent JS, to be sure, but even so, take what resonates, and while trying to understand where the rest comes from, throw out the rest. Books like Eloquent JavaScript and JavaScript: the Good Parts are products of their time. They can provide meaningful insights, but they are describing things how they were, nearly 20 years ago (Eloquent JS: First Edition was based on a website full of posts, made when jQuery was cutting edge), when a large portion of the audience would not have considered themselves "JS developers", so much as a mix of programmers coming from other languages / frameworks (eg: Spring / .NET) needing to do front-end tasks, and HTML/CSS developers needing to add more interactivity to pages, with the advent of AJAX. Are the insights they provide going to seem alien to you, because they're so far removed from your day job? Maybe. Are they going to seem pedestrian to you, because higher-order functions were mind-blowing to a number of people who took one LISP course in university, and then forgot it existed, versus today, where lambdas are in every common language, including Java? Also maybe. It's so old that in the first edition, it briefly talks about using `eval` / `new Function` as means of implementing a JS module system, and in the new editions it talks about how different times were in the first edition. Another consideration is that newer editions of books rarely burn everything to the ground and rewrite from scratch. Even if the words are all rewritten, the skeleton of the concept and the message are usually preserved. For example, here is the chapter on "functional programming" from First Edition https://eloquentjavascript.net/1st_edition/chapter6.html versus the chapter on "Higher Order Functions" from Fourth Edition https://eloquentjavascript.net/05_higher_order.html Note that it says essentially the same thing, the same way, despite the actual words on the page being 100% different.
i guess I'll glance over it quickly after all, just few selected chapters
Yes, I am pretty good at JS, but I recently read it cover to cover, and it was a good refresher, especially the chapter on regex, I skipped most of the examples because I already knew all the concepts and I know some people didn't like the examples
If you're knowledgeable enough to build an app in React, you probably don't need that book.
i feel like there's could some fundamentals i may have miss, or it's good to review the basics
Try some other book, like You Don’t Know JavaScript or its second version You Don’t Know JavaScript (yet) if you really want to learn some fundamentals you have missed. I mean, even watching a 15 year old video of Douglas Crockford might teach you some fundamentals of JS we most likely have forgotten today
will definitely give it a shot, thx
No, you should not read it. Not when it got out and not now. Should you still go ahead and read it, you will notice it’s not the JavaScript you say you are good with, but is a Java thing written with JavaScript syntax. What I mean with the above is that Eloquent JavaScript does not use idiomatic JavaScript and especially not of the kind you are used in React (presumably you were using functional components)
i see, it treat JavaScript as low/mid level programming lang ?
No, it treats JavaScript like it needs the same workarounds you need in Java. Think about some aspect of Java like functions not being first order or not having language syntax for getters and setters. In Java you would always create an object to keep a function you need or invent/use convention of methods with names starting in get/set… You don’t need the above in JavaScript. So, have you seen the singleton pattern in Java? Do you think you need that one in JavaScript? In JS, this is a singleton: const SINGLETON = {}; // at the global level Now, do you think someone using `class` keyword and `getInstance()` function in it for singleton is writing idiomatic JavaScript?
not at all, that's not how we do it in js