Hacker News Reader

Comment by Sn0wCoder | Hacker News Reader

One hundred percent agree on both this book and the “You don’t know JavaScript”. Both are free (search Kyle Simpson GitHub). I ended up buying the YDKJ first edition paperbacks but see the second edition of all of them are done or a work in progress. EJs is the one I tell my students to start with as IMO is more of a programming book that just happens to us JS. I can tell the ones that read it (it’s optional) and the ones that do not. I do a few random chapters every year and learn something that I either missed or forgot I knew every time. I am mostly using TS these days but also enjoy vanilla JS for side projects and prototypes. Note the YDKJ books can come off as very ‘only my opinion is the right one’ kind of like JS the good parts but just look past that and absorb the content, what you do with it after that is up to you regardless of the author’s opinion.

View on HN

> Note the YDKJ books can come off as very ‘only my opinion is the right one’ kind of like JS the good parts

I got the same feeling and it's very off-putting. KS seems like a dick. It's ironic that so much of his dickishness seems to be reacting against what he takes as Doug Crockford's dickishness. Ah the irony.

He did a day workshop at my old company about 10 years ago. He did come off as a dick, and very opinionated, but I really liked his no-stone-unturned approach, and ended up buying a few of the books when they came out later, and I got so much good stuff from reading them. I personally disagree with many of his opinions and have no problem with this at all; he covers everything (including parts of the language he clearly hates) in such detail that I can form my own dissenting opinions whenever I want. If anything, it’s a good thing that he is so openly opinionated - it makes it easier for me to pay attention and prompts me to ‘argue back’ and form my own (better) opinions, compared to just reading dry material that always tries to remain neutral and void of feeling. The only problem with opinionated code writers is if they actually fail to cover the stuff they don’t like. KS covers it all, with relish, often bitterly. I love it. Same for Doug Crockford. Always found him hilariously opinionated, often to the point that he was clearly fighting against reality, and yet I learned a ton by reading the cantankerous old git.

These are great points.

I wonder sometimes at how much my whole line of reasoning should matter at all. In other words: if it as you describe (and I agree with your representation of the issue) then KS can be as dickish as he wants, he's providing awesome information that I can then use as I like. His actual personality should be irrelevant.

And yet, to me, it isn't. I suppose it's deep-seated social processing at work that's hard to override.

I know Kyle and he is very opinionated and adheres very tightly to his set of beliefs. I think this can rub some people the wrong way and maybe this leads to the belief that he is a dick.

From my personal experience I think he's actually a really nice guy. He's also been unemployed for quite a while now and seems to be struggling with something. Doesn't seem very kind to kick him while he's down even if it's a virtual kicking.

I'm all for not kicking people while they're down. But if you build your brand in part on throwing haymakers every which way, people are going to have bad feelings about you that will come out in passing discussion, as here.

Went to JSConf India, specially for Kyle Simpson talk. His whole talk was just how his company can be a game changer for web development. Just so disappointing

YDKJ 2nd edition after first two parts the rest seems less actively worked on? hope the 2nd revision will be done soon.

I think Kyle Simpson is out of work and looking for something full-time and also started some other company, so probably not his main priority atm.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com