Hacker News Reader

Comment by kls | Hacker News Reader

What if I had to Choose Just 3 Books

You selection is good but I can't believe that in the "if I could only get three" section, Crockford's the good parts is not #1. I mean it is the seminal work for JavaScript, it should be the first or second book anyone considering doing serious JavaScript should read.

View on HN

I must echo this sentiment and also mention a few non-books that were instrumental for me.

For my new job (first out of college) I have read ~5 javascript books cover to cover and flipped through a few more.

Crockford's book was by far the most enlightening and made the most immediate impact on my understanding and methods of coding.

Second, for me, was John Resig's blog (http://ejohn.org/blog)

And third I suppose might be looking through the way people have written things on github:

https://github.com/nzakas

https://github.com/jquery/jquery

I will echo your echo, along with a JavaScript tutorial by Resig which I rate at least as highly as The Good Parts: http://ejohn.org/apps/learn/

The thing about Crockford's book is that it's short and direct, and gives you the straight dope on how you program in JavaScript. It would be a terrible book for someone first learning to program, but if you know a few programming languages already -- especially something that supports lexically-scoped anonymous functions -- then JS:tGP is something you can read through in an hour or two, and then just start writing JavaScript.

@kls: Thanks. Crockford's book is certainly good which is why it was part of the bigger list. For me personally, I much preferred the 3 books I listed because I've found more value to them.

Appreciate the feedback though and thank you for reading the post.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com