Head First JavaScript Programming: A Brain-Friendly Guide 1st Edition

I am a big fan of the Head First books. I thoroughly enjoyed learning Java and JavaScript by reading two of their books. I am retired now, but was a senior software engineer for 30 years programming in 360/370 assembler, RPG, cobol, visual basic, ibm series one edl, c, c++, java and proprietary 16bit and 32bit languages. I wish these books were around back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s when they could have jump started my learning in various languages. These books are quick study guides that cover the basics and include lots of fluff that you can skip over if too verbose. The use of examples with handwritten annotation is perfect to get the important learning concepts across. For now, I am using my new JavaScript language knowledge to create interactive web pages that get served from an ESP32C6 microcontroller to report information and allow remote control of devices attached to it.

This book keeps you engaged, and keep you moving - even if you don't have a good reading practice of Technical books.I have read about closures in Java 8 and groovy articles, but I completely understood it only from this book. The coining of the word 'free variables' - variables which are neither local nor global, but declared in the enclosing functions is very good. The definition and explanation that - functions returned from other functions which has also free variables attached to it (in its environment), and those free variables are live variables and not a copy is a very good explanation.For experienced programmers in other languages (say 5 to 9, which I am ) , you will find this book interesting only if you write answers to the problems and have a pencil with you all the time. Else, it will be a book containing very basic programming constructs which you might know it already. but, if you write the answers, you may find that you made some mistakes and you will wonder whyFor experienced javascript programmers, I am not sure whether you will find it more exiciting, but certain chapters on - Objects, Prototypes, event handling will help you to keep your basics strong. Few instances are1. In a chapter - "they build a War Ship Game", the whole code will be divided into Controller, Model and View. This is well explained and would let you think that, even a small peice of code should not hang on the JS file, but go inside a object as a method or a property.The control should start and end like this : EventHandlers triggered by windows.onload --> Controller -> Model ->View2. The transition from each topic was very good.They described about variables and functions (global and local), and then they explained why it has to be inside a Object Literal. and later described why they have to be inside a Contructor (Object object rather than Object Literal), and then they explain why all the commonly used functions and variables should be inside a Prototype, and finally, they explained Prototypical inheritance.3. All the hanging functions (alert, prompt etc.,,) and objects (console) are properties of window object. Also, all the user defined global variables and functions would be attached to the window object4. Also, by default "this" would be pointing to window object. Whenever you call a function on a Object Literal or object, the "this" will point to that object instance(that is why you refer the variable with this inside a member method). also, whenever you can a constructor with new, an object will be created, and "this" will point to that object inside the constructor.5. Also, when a instance is returned by the constuctor, a Constructor.prototype object (an empty object) will be also be attached the object instance.this will help you to understand prototypical inheritance a lot better in the later chapter.6. Math is an Javascript supplied object. Date, RegExp are constructors. That is why you would always write Math.random(), and new Date(), new RegExp(/^\d{3}-?\d{4}/).This book is NOT for javasript programmers who are very good in their basics. I cant comment on this a lot, because I just now started to work on my first javascript project, but aspiring to be a good one by end of this year.For aspiring programmers (who were never programmers), I think, this is a very good book to start your career.

great book to learn from .. Easy to read from.

As far as textbooks, I really like the content and the way it’s expressed. It’s an “easy” read. I also like how it’s interactive and invites you to write in the book with all their exercises. BUT- writing Inside of a 700 page book isn’t easy. Keeping the thing open just to READ it is a constant effort, which means writing in it is hard and CLUNKY. They’re already going outside of the box with this conversational style textbook, why not go a little further and make it a spiral bound book so I’m not writing on a rounded surface that’s constantly trying to close itself off from me. Or, provide an accompanying, smaller book that just contains the exercises/writing parts only so it’s easier to write in.Edit: Even with the fact the book is hard to write-in, I still gave it 5 stars, but after further reading ive found that the book does NOT provide the answers to the “Brain Power” exercises that consistently appear in the bottom corner of pages in the book. There’s many different exercises in the book for the reader to complete, all of which give the answers at the end of the chapter so you can find out if you’re learning it correctly or not. I haven’t been able to find the answers to the “Brain Power” questions though and it’s really, really annoying. Annoying enough I felt the need to get back on here and take it down to 4 stars.

Head First JavaScript is an excellent resource for anyone looking to strengthen their JavaScript fundamentals. The book is easy to follow, engaging, and well-structured, making even complex concepts feel approachable. The interactive style and real-world examples helped me feel more secure in my understanding of JavaScript fundamentals, reinforcing key concepts in a way that sticks.