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tcheang's review
4.0
The books straddles the middle-ground between practicality and computer science theory; not quite how-to-react-redux-node-express and not quite big-O, graphs, trees, automata, etc. Perhaps this actually allows for a timeless introduction to JavaScript.
It's insufficient on its own for first-time learners (not enough exercises), but it was perfect for me as an overview of a variety of coding concepts (e.g. higher-order functions, async functions and promises, the motivation behind modern web programming). The examples aren't always easy to follow, but the interactivity of most of the book (save the node.js portions toward the end) within the browser allows for immediate exploration of questions that might come up. I found that having one or two other languages as a reference helped contextualize the material, but it may not be necessary to go through the book. Since it's free, I recommend it at least as a reference, even if you don't read it cover-to-cover.
It's insufficient on its own for first-time learners (not enough exercises), but it was perfect for me as an overview of a variety of coding concepts (e.g. higher-order functions, async functions and promises, the motivation behind modern web programming). The examples aren't always easy to follow, but the interactivity of most of the book (save the node.js portions toward the end) within the browser allows for immediate exploration of questions that might come up. I found that having one or two other languages as a reference helped contextualize the material, but it may not be necessary to go through the book. Since it's free, I recommend it at least as a reference, even if you don't read it cover-to-cover.
kawai's review
3.0
A decent overview of the language, with concise descriptions and well-organized chapters. However, at times the book appears to prefer brevity to completeness, such that if this were a person's only reference for learning the basics of the language, there would be a lot of holes in their knowledge. Given that, I'd recommend combining this book with several others, including [b:JavaScript: The Good Parts|2998152|JavaScript The Good Parts|Douglas Crockford|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328834793s/2998152.jpg|3028639], [b:JavaScript: The Definitive Guide|148050|JavaScript The Definitive Guide|David Flanagan|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347652925s/148050.jpg|142879], as well as [b:JavaScript and Jquery: Interactive Front-End Web Development|16219704|JavaScript and Jquery Interactive Front-End Web Development|Jon Duckett|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1394412494s/16219704.jpg|22198953].
Still, because it has a great sandbox and a good interactive online format (for free!) as well as exercises at the end of each chapter, it does force you to get your hands dirty in a way that the other reference books listed here don't.
Still, because it has a great sandbox and a good interactive online format (for free!) as well as exercises at the end of each chapter, it does force you to get your hands dirty in a way that the other reference books listed here don't.
nontendo's review
3.0
this was fine. i don't really care how computers work that much. i don't know what people look for in these books either but from what i can tell it's pretty informative.
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