Eloquent JavaScript, 2nd Ed.: A Modern Introduction to Programming

I had programmed in C for twenty years but needed to learn JavaScript and this book was excellent. It is like working with a mentor who is showing you the ins and outs—the good, the bad, and ugly—of working with JavaScript. And, after describing the theory, this mentor is dolling out digestible exercises and projects to reinforce what you have learned. The book is well-written, just the right amount of descriptive text and code illustrations, and Haverbeke does not belabor points and concepts that are obvious to experienced programmers. The examples in the text are pithy but instructive; the exercises at the end of the chapters are short but not trivial, and really force you to demonstrate you masterly of the conceptHere’s the only problem with book: it is completely bereft of figures, and this detracts from the presentation in the project chapters, where some diagrams showing the relationship between the data structures and the methods would be helpful. As I wrote earlier, Haverbeke is like an excellent mentor showing a junior programmer in the ins and outs of JavaScript with a library of excellent examples but with not white board. In some sections, there is just too much prose description without a theory of operation description with a figure or two.All that said, this is an outstanding book for learning how to program in JavaScript. It is not for someone learning how to program—they will be completely frustrated using this book. It is too difficult. But if you already know how to program and are trying to learn and master JavaScript, this book is outstanding.

Highly recommended for anyone who would like to self learn JavaScript. Chapter 9 was my favorite topic.

I love this book. Why? Because it uses common sense and a broader view of programming unlike many other books which go on and on about the commands, value etc. of a language without really explaining the WHY of programming. Those books create robots who mindlessly code but are incapable of thinking for themselves (similar to a lot of coding schools).That said, this is book is more philosophical than actual learning of JS. It is NOT for beginners. Here is what I would suggest you do if you are new to JS.-Learn basic JS programming online, MSDN is an excellent source to learn step by step and there are many simple online step by step classes.-If you are new to programming, the best advice i ever got was --Learn only one language and master it well. That is it. Don;t run after every shiny thing.-Then come back to this book. You will appreciate it more.This book however, makes you think-which is rare nowadays. I like how he takes us through what programming is and how to think about code. I would recommend that you go through some simple online exercises in javascript before you open this book.

I just received it a couple of days ago so naturally, I haven't finished it. However, it felt right to express my opinion.The book's first parts are perfect for beginners, if you are one, without computing background, you might feel overwhelmed however if you play with the mini programs the author gives to you on your computer, you'll understand the basic concepts of programming.As far as I can see, the book explains very well the concepts, and the author lets us know about the caveats of the language and technicalities of it in bits and pieces as he feels they should be taught. I really like how he approaches the teaching of this language.I can't wait to get to the most advanced concepts which is why I ordered the book, but I am taking my time to read it from the start since it provides very important and often overlooked implementation details that are not mentioned at online tutorials and such. I feel happy. I'll update as I go on reading.

This book is written mostly for beginners or beginners coming from other programming languages. Bottom line up front: it's a good resource, but not the greatest, make it an arrow in your quiver of JS books/ebooks/online classes/code examples. The first several chapters are great for explaining the basics for newcomers and are a review for experienced programmers. The technical knowledge and fine level of detail in the first several chapters creates the expectation that the same level of detail will carry over to the next chapters on intermediate/advanced JavaScript. However when going into intermediate/advanced JS concepts, that's when things get a little hazy and confusing.One of the things that is confusing is certain keywords and concepts are not explicitly defined or explained, but are described and used in examples to demonstrate their purpose. A good example is the keyword 'this'. 'This' in JS is different from other programming languages and the value changes depending on the calling context (execution context) of 'this' in relation to its parent object. Confused? You are not the only one (and I don't have enough space to properly define 'this' here). The author does suggest a work around (var self=this), but 'this' serves as a foundation for other concepts (call, apply, & bind) and OOP, so knowing the keyword 'this' is essential.Also, there are a few other things that are not adequately covered like prototypal inheritance (which JS uses), pseudo-classical inheritance ('syntactical sugar' in JS), and classical inheritance (not used in JS, but used in Java,C, etc) and some code examples stretches best practices. Some of the examples are challenging to follow, explanations might be sparse, there is an example that prints a table to the browser console instead of the webpage/DOM elements (maybe better thru the terminal?), and some examples have methods and functions in the constructor function, but maybe they should be in an instance method, in the prototype, or in a separate function (I'm kind of torn on this, there are good examples to see, but maybe not good examples to see FIRST when you are learning the language).However, there are technical details sprinkled throughout the chapters that indicate a deep understanding of JS, and you would not readily get from reading the technical definition on Mozilla Developer Network (aka MDN Web Docs) or some of the discussion boards, and are a good for future reference.