JavaScript Patterns

Author: Stoyan Stefanov
Publisher: O'Reilly/Yahoo Press, 2010
Pages: 240
ISBN: 978-0596806750
Aimed at: Existing Javascript programmers
Rating: 5
Pros:Enjoyable, informative and will improve your code
Cons: Requires the reader to understand some Javascript programming
Reviewed by: Mike James

 

This is a really enjoyable book - it's short, easy-to-read and you are likely to learn something from every page.

 

It isn't for beginners but every Javascript beginner should aspire to reading and understanding the content of this book.

 

To put things simply what this book is about is the best way to use Javascript and, because Javascript is such a flexible language, it informs you about lots of bad ways to avoid as well.

 

Banner

 

The first two chapters deal with the basics in the sense that they are fundamental to all uses of Javascript - globals, for loops, for-in loops, switch, coding conventions and so on. Chapter 3 deals with literals and constructors. This isn't a from-the-ground-up treatment of Javascript objects but a look at some of the finer points tha you could well have overlooked. The same is true of chapter 4 on functions. It explains the standard uses of Javascript functions - callbacks, immediate functions, currying and so on. Chapter 5  discusses object creation patterns - namespaces, access,  constants, and chaining.

From here we move into less Javascript specific patterns. Chapter 6 deals with defaults, inheritance, mix-ins and so on. Chapter 7 deals with wider gang of four classical patterns - singleton, factory, iterator, decorator and so on. Chapter 8 deals with the DOM and Browser patterns.

The good thing about this book is that it doesn' t attempt to bully you into using a particular pattern or approach. It describes the pros and cons of a range of approaches and then concludes that one of them is likely to better - even if only very slightly better in many cases.

As long as you know enough Javascript and programming in general to appreciate the arguments than this is a very enjoyable book that can't help but improve the quality of the code you produce. I said at the start that it isn't suitable for the beginner but if you are a beginner then your goal in life should be to progress to the point that you can benefit from reading it.

This is now my official number one intermediate to advanced Javascript book - highly recommended.


Banner


Python Programming with Design Patterns

Author: James W. Cooper
Publisher: Addison-Wesley
Date: February 2022
Pages: 352
ISBN: 978-0137579938
Print: 0137579934
Kindle: B09D2RKQB5
Audience: Python developers
Rating: 1
Reviewer: Mike James
There was a time that design patterns were all the thing. Not so much now. But Python - does it have [ ... ]



R for the Rest of Us

Author: David Keyes
Publisher: No Starch Press
Date: June 2024
Pages: 256
ISBN: 978-1718503328
Print: 1718503326
Kindle: B0CD3GV46N
Audience: Beginners interested in R
Rating: 3
Reviewer: Mike James
Well I'm certainly the "rest of us" - what about you?


More Reviews

Last Updated ( Monday, 17 January 2011 )