Hacker News Reader

Comment by k3n | Hacker News Reader

Considering the date, it seems as if it might've been pushed out the door to satisfy contractual obligations.

I'm not sure just how relevant it will be, now that the JS ecosystem has exploded -- seriously, 4 years is _eons_ in the JS world, I think the Jaxer server was still the new tech and NodeJS wasn't even heard of at the time -- and there are 10x's as many JS devs now than there was in 2008 (not to mention that the average competency seems to have greatly improved as well). And I could be wrong, but I think he's mostly disconnected from jQuery itself now, too; I'm clumsy with git/github, but I can't even find his last commit to jQuery, and I know that all of the blog posts on jQuery.com have long since been done by other team members. While he's a really talented dev, his name is pretty rare when it comes to JS news and topics these days.

View on HN

I definitely agree that there are a ton more JavaScript users now, compared to 4 years ago - I disagree that they're more competent, it's a pretty massive bell curve. The tech bubble can be pretty insular here at Hacker News but I still run across TONS of people who've never 1) Used any JavaScript whatsoever or 2) Have used a JavaScript library but have no concept of how it relates to JavaScript, the DOM, or what the library does under the hood. The book attempts to serve #2 primarily and that's still a MASSIVE audience.

As to being involved in the JavaScript world, my focus has shifted - I'm no longer trying to build tools for people who already have tools, I'm trying to teach the next generation of developers and JavaScript users: http://ejohn.org/blog/introducing-khan-cs/

I also feel extremely confident that the technical work that I've done with the Khan Academy CS platform continues to be unlike anything else done by other development platforms.

Thank you for your Computer Science work on Khan Academy! I tech my kids using your system for several months now, and I am very happy! :) Would be great to be able to change the rendering size from 400x400 to something bigger, may be even having a splitter in the middle, and deciding how much you want to use for the editor and for the program :)

Happy New Year!

Aye, perhaps it's my perception then, because I've been seeing lots of awesome code out there recently. There used to be a few exciting JS projects, though many of them were redundant in some ways, and they were still fairly basic by today's standards. Today, though, it seems like a fun new project pops up monthly.

I won't argue that there isn't still a ton of education that needs to happen! I've been battling this at work, as few candidates have much JS experience at all (I think all of the good ones are involved in the hot projects).

I'd also concede that educating future coders is possibly not only more important, but more fulfilling. I've been following your blog for awhile, and though I do miss the geeky JS topics such as the precision (or lack thereof) of setInterval/setTimeout, how great documentFragment's are, etc. I've also enjoyed the posts about Kahn.

I think it's an issue of there being a bell curve on all the JavaScript users. If we assume that 80% of JS users are in the "use a library and know very little of the language" category and the top 10% is "publishes libraries/tools" and the bottom 10% is "copies-and-pastes code with reckless abandon" - then going from 1 million JS users in 2008 to 4 million now (theoretical) then there will be 4x more awesome libraries and 4x more ignorant users.

Thank you for the kind works regarding my blog - I really hope to begin writing again. Perhaps that'll make for a good new years resolution :)

Definitely more awesome code out there but I think you're seeing that from a VERY vocal minority of developers who are 1) very vested in the OSS community, 2) love to share code and 3) are pushing to get the most out of JavaScript.

As I think John eluded to, there's a number of developers that don't fall into any of these buckets and a book like this would certainly be useful to them. I was with John on the jQuery team and I know that I'll be picking up a copy of this since I'm sure I'll find some nugget of awesomeness in there that will make it worth the price.

I agree, I used to get excited about just jquery plugins. But noe using node.js and ember.js makes me almost not want to code in anything else. (Except for objective-c for ios and java for android)

It is just amazing to see how much it has exploded in the last few years. Serverside js and client side mvc will keep me excited at least for another year.

They've probably been revising it as JS has progressed.

Perhaps, but lacking a formal ToC and using the "review" that's listed on Amazon, I'm not seeing any indication of:

    * ES5
    * CommonJS
    * promises/deferreds
    * AMD/UMD/etc.
    * NodeJS
    * asynchronous concerns such as callback hell (and other focus areas as addressed by Async.js[1])
    * packages
    * HTML5
    * the MV* hysteria

Granted, many of those aren't central to "JS" proper, they should at least bear a mention....but perhaps not. Just seems like what's covered is mostly run-of-the-mill JS fodder...

1. https://github.com/caolan/async#readme

There is no coverage of any of these at all. I really think the book is an overview of cross platform javascript issues from 3-4 years ago that someone who wanted to clone jquery would need to know. That is about it. I am really disappointed at the lack of progress throughout the MEAP stage. I hoped it would develop into more advanced areas but it must have been hard for the authors to change focus especially after years of writing the book.

I don't think it makes sense to shift the focus of the book - the topic that it serves (understanding the fundamental construction of JavaScript DOM libraries and the trickier aspects of the JavaScript language) is one that is grossly underserved. The issues that jQuery tackles are still issues that are relevant to developers on the whole. I should note that while the book does tackle cross platform issues that isn't exclusively what it tackles - at least 1/2 of the book is on nothing but the JavaScript language, for example.

> [...] an overview of cross platform javascript issues from 3-4 years ago that someone who wanted to clone jquery would need to know.

Ugh! I have his prior book, Pro JavaScript Techniques (Apress, 2006), and that's basically how I've always described it. I refer to it as 'The jQuery Memoirs'.

I wouldn't consider Pro JavaScript Techniques to be "The jQuery Memoirs" really at all. It only mentions libraries in passing. Whereas this book is much more in-depth and really breaks apart the fundamental aspects of a JavaScript DOM library in a way that developers can put into common use.

It may only mention libraries in passing, but I seemed to remember that many of the techniques were used in jQuery (where applicable). I don't mean any offense by relating that to memoirs; rather, it was very helpful to see many of your examples in real-life code that I was using every day -- and finally understanding both the how and the why.

Thanks for the reply, and good luck with the book! I do plan to check it out.

Oh, no worries - hope you'll enjoy it!

A couple of those items show up in the index that's available on the Manning site, and the preface that's available there addresses them a bit too. Also implies that most of the revisions weren't made by Resig but by the coauthor...

I can confirm that there is very little coverage of these topics -- perhaps a bit about ES5, but I've read the MEAP, and I don't recall reading anything about the rest of them.

asides from ES5 and promises , none of these are core javascript issues. NodeJS is not javascript , CommonJS what the hell is that ? nobody cares about that stuff , HTML5 is a set of apis , nothing to do with javascript , If i want a book on javascript i want a book on the language itself , not on canvas , webgl, requireJS or Express or Backbone ...

> asides from ES5 and promises [...] CommonJS what the hell is that ?

Perhaps you should learn what you're criticizing before you criticize it; CommonJS has put forth a lot of effort to try and standardize API's across platforms (browser, server). API's for things like...promises[1]. And modules, plus many more[2]. Ironically, several of these could very well end up in ES Harmony, and so to discuss them now wouldn't be too much of a risk because the problems they solve exist today.

1. http://wiki.commonjs.org/wiki/Promises

2. http://www.commonjs.org/specs/

> NodeJS is not javascript [...]nobody cares about that stuff , HTML5 is a set of apis , nothing to do with javascript

Yes, but if you work with JS in any capacity today, then there's a good chance you'll be working with either or both of those technologies.

> not on canvas , webgl, requireJS or Express or Backbone

I didn't mention any of those...

Core or not, I'd prefer coverage of those issues myself. I can't really think of core problems I run into myself, I've been writing core JavaScript for a decade or something, but there's lots of intricacies with those other things where I wouldn't mind tips. Different audiences, I suppose. I browsed the TOC one kind reviewer was nice enough to list, saw there wasn't anything I was interested in or had trouble with lately, and moved on.

False, you want a book plus its applications; if you buy a book about woodworking you probably want to see some examples of furniture creation and other practical challenges to apply your new found knowledge.

That is why this book deals with DOM and BOM from chapter 11 to 15 even if those are not purely JavaScript.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com