Book of the Day: Effective JavaScript
blog.mediumequalsmessage.com
blog.mediumequalsmessage.com
https://twitter.com/apaprocki/status/289839413733781504
I only received positive feedback and most people said they learned at least one new thing from the book :)
One thing that's interesting about the book is that while he mentions things like "don't use feature X, works strangely in some browsers", he never explicitly states which browsers. He also doesn't make a lot of mention to frameworks etc, or the DOM. Just the common denominator javascript as it is implemented, and the language features. So don't expect it to teach you the latest tricks in your favorite MVC framework. It's written in a very timeless way on purpose, and he very deliberately avoids making reference to "current events" in javascript.
> copyright: For legal reasons, the standards organization,
> Ecma International, was unable to use the name “JavaScript”
> for its standard."
(from the sample chapter PDF)
He must mean "a matter of trademark" rather than "a matter of copyright".
https://github.com/effectivejs/site/wiki/Errata
(Let me know if I got your name wrong for the credit; I followed links from your HN profile.)
Thanks, Dave
There, no referrals.
I don't understand what exactly problems people with referrals.
Would you prefer it he had an under the table deal with the author which you could not see?
Referral links in book reviews are a problem because of the conflict of interest they create. If the author of the review chooses to put a referral link into it, they create a financial incentive to bias their own review in favour of the book. Rather than a means of helping people determine which books to buy, reviews become a hollow call to action with a conversion rate measured in referral dollars. A review with a referral link in it has absolutely no credibility.
On top of that, they call the very purpose of the review itself into question. Is the author of the review really reviewing anything at all, or are they simply writing reviews as a means of generating cash? This particular blog is brimming with glowing reviews of Javascript books, each with Amazon referral links inside. Are there really so many must-have Javascript books on the market? If so, do we really need the dubious help of a blogger to find a good one?
So I actually don't think this creates a conflict of interest regarding this book at all. Why would a "conflicted reviewer" point you toward this book vs any other book that he could be equally compensated for?
The conflict arises in two cases -- if the OP insists you should buy this book that's only available on Amazon vs another book that's widely available. Or if this book happens to be significantly more expensive (and hence pays the OP better) than other books.
I don't think either of those is the case here, so I think your dismissal is perhaps unfounded.
I think this blog is an egregious blurring of the line between content and advertising. I urge you to go and look at its archive of posts. Every post somehow contrives to include at least one Amazon referral link. Svbtle is a business looking for a long-term business model, and I sincerely hope this isn't it.
OK, some of my observations on the whole issue of reviews and criticism here:
1) Are referrals that different than the publisher advertising on the newspaper or magazine that reviews his books? Or if the author is a friend of stuff in the magazine, or even the reviewer? All the above have been going on for ages in the publishing world.
2) What about a site or blog that ALWAYS puts referral links to the books it reviews, whether the reviews are favorable or not?
3) What about a site that only posts about books they really like, along with referrals, and skip the ones they don't?
4) I think the presence of referrals and quality of the review are orthogonal. Not in the sense that a referral doesn't give a "conflict of interest" to the reviewer, but in the sense that you shouldn't judge good reviews by the presence potential conflicts of interests or not anyway.
5) There is only two ways to know if a review is any good.
The absolute way: read the book yourself and compare to the review.
The faux-bayesian heuristic way: the critic has a consistent track record in his other reviews that tells you that he is good and honest.
6) That said, I think there is also another way. If you read enough reviews, you get the ability to judge the review itself in a meta-level. So much, that you can get useful information about the work reviewed out of it, regardless if the critic is good/honest or not. And I think this meta-reading of reviews is the more important skill. Never trust the review completely, judge it and take the information that you need by also reading behind the lines.
A simplistic example: maybe a review of a programming book is horrible (and paid by the publisher) but it gives code examples used in the book. Just looking at the example code you can tell with some certainty if the book itself will be a disappointment or not.