Eloquent JavaScript

I'm sure those fancy JS wranglers out there will get a lot out of this book, but if you're a coding newbie, look elsewhere for your intro, far far elsewhere. I made the mistake of thinking I'd use this book to help supplement my learning of JS. And what a mistake. It gave no practical help whatsoever.

I got through the first 3 and a half chapters no problem. Then suddenly at the end of chapter 4, I felt like my head exploded. I don't blame Marijin, but suddenly the examples became very abstract (to my brain) and there was little explanation to help me out. The rest of the book was hit or miss with me - I understood some sections easier than others but I feel like I still haven't grasped some fundamentals, so I'll have to continue my learning elsewhere. The good news....this book is available in its entirety online, for free. Can't beat that!!

This might be a great book. I'll return to it when I have well beyond an Introductory understanding of JS programming. Though with such a misleading title and chapter structure, I don't have much faith the concepts I couldn't understand will turn out to be communicated well upon a second reading after I have learned JavaScript. I'm annoyed enough to leave a bad review because it really does start out as if Haverbeke intends to help introduce us gently into this world.

Regarding the actual text, Eloquent Javascript is an awesome introduction to an often misunderstood and abused language. It really tries to live up to its name and tackles issues like functional programming, object orientation, modularity and reusability and more. The author's style is light and tot he point and the examples are excellent, e.g. writing a bunch of nice higher-order functions in the chapter on FP or implementing a small Sokoban game.

I love it!! Its an easy read and the writer did such a great job in explaining technical information, making the complex simple and give you a fair understanding in the process of programming. Its like: Here, by the way, this is a scope and this is why it's important to know about it. And now Ill explain you in a simple sentence something about variables: You should imagine variables as tentacles, rather than boxes. They do not contain values they grasp themtwo variables can refer to the same value. And, BAM, things that a (software engineer) friend tried explaining to me in length with samples and drawings and a thousand of words are suddenly clear! The code examples are clear and comprehensible, descriptions are simple yet effective. Hell, its even humorous sometimes! :DEloquent JavaScript didnt teach me a bunch of commands and build in functions and it didnt showered me with details of the language itself - it gave me a deeper understanding of computer programming, concepts and data representation & a good foundation for the further learning process in JavaScript :D

This book is essential to understanding how to write Javascript applications. Not just the sort of everyday JS you might write in small snippets to support a site that is mostly driven from the backend, but the sort of modern, single-page application that today's JS libraries support. Even further, when you carry JS itself into the backend, via node/io.js, what Marjin talks about in this book becomes not just essential, though still that, but rather mandatory for code that is understandable, maintainable, and extensible.

A great introduction to JavaScript as a language, and a good introduction to computer science/software engineering more generally. Haverbeke makes no assumptions about what you know coming into the book, which is helpful inasmuch as it makes it accessible but he also isn't patronizing like some intro books can be, meaning that if you are already familiar with some of this stuff, you're likely to learn something new.

My review of the book is probably heavily biased, because I'm not really part of the target audience of this book. It is intended to be a first course in programming, and in my opinion, it serves that purpose well. If you are totally unfamiliar or just barely familiar with programming, this book will be a good introduction to the topic. It focuses on good programming practices and actually building things, without troubling the reader with dry theory.

Apart from the newly added chapter on Asynchronous js I liked the whole book. I particularly enjoyed the exercise problems and the projects. This book is definitely not for a beginner in programming.

This book is definitely not for beginners in JavaScript. The author does not provide a beginner's working knowledge of the subject matter and does not provide enough exercises at the end of each chapter in order for the reader to solidify his or her understanding of the material. The few problems that are provided are presented with large gaps between the content in the reading and the problems. By this I mean, that by the time you finish chapter two, you're ready to throw the book out the window. Granted, he obviously knows JavaScript, he just appears to not really be qualified to teach beginners. This book would probably better serve an audience people who already have a foundation of JavaScript.

The author is a good writer but not a good teacher. The content is presented well but not organized well enough for a technical book. The initial chapters were fine but as the book went on, I felt lost. I think the lack of numbering (of sections) and a flat sectioning (no sub-sections) also adds to the this feeling of getting lost. The examples presented are overtly complex at times and core language features are not covered rigorously (as advertised). There is a lot of space wasted by chit-chat at the start of some chapters as compared to length of the chapter.

As a technical book you get the right amount of theory and you get hands on exercises since the very beginning. With the variety of tools and frameworks available for the language, the author keeps the things simple and practical. You need to invest time in the exercises to get the full value from the book.