JavaScript
The Good Parts
by Douglas Crockford, Ke luo ke fu de, Yan xue kun · first published 2008
75% recommend24% neutral1% critical
Why HN recommends it
Slim, opinionated guide to writing clean JavaScript with a focus on style and code organization, not DOM tricks. Teaches closures, scope, prototypes and this; suits developers who know another language.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Covers the bits of Javascript that are worth using, and how to use them, as well as the bits that should be avoided.
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Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
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It needs more than just coding standards. Someone needs to give C++ the same treatment Doug Crockford gave Javascript when he wrote Javascript: The Good Parts.
on “The C++ bashing season is back” ↗The best way I've found to learn JavaScript is through anything by Douglas Crawford. 'JavaScript the Good Parts' is especially good. http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596517748 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQVTIJBZook
on “The best JavaScript guide ever” ↗I disliked JavaScript, but then I read JavaScript: The Good Parts, and I saw that with a bit of discipline* there's something quite pleasant underneath. It's a book that, rather than being focussed on telling you what not…
on “JavaScript for People Who Hate JavaScript” ↗"JavaScript: The Good Parts" by Crockford and "JavaScript: The Definitive Guide" by Flanagan are all you need, at least for the language itself
on “Need best Javascript books suggestion” ↗I found the book "JavaScript: The Good Parts" by Douglas Crockford to be very helpful in understanding the language. It's short and covers the main things you'll need to know. It's a good starting place. In fact, he gave a tech talk…
on “Ask HN: How to learn Javascript and HTML for devs coming from C++/Java/Python?” ↗I'm not an expert in JavaScript... Given that you said that, and that the problem you hit is a common pitfall for Javascript developers (especially if you're not very seasoned with the language), I'd strongly recommend picking up a…
on “How One Missing `var` Ruined our Launch” ↗JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford. Note that this was written in 2008 but still holds up well. https://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Good-Parts-Douglas-Crockfo... It may be a perfect time for a revision.
on “JavaScript for Impatient Programmers” ↗…but often in practice as well) be manipulated by noncoders. If you want to try Drupal and you are a coder you must read VanDyk's Pro Drupal Development, Second Edition ASAP. Trust me on this. As for Javascript, which is arguably more important: jQuery, jQuery, jQuery. Also: Douglas Crockford, Javascript: The Good Parts. And learn your CSS if you haven't already; I did that by reading Eric Meyer's O'Reilly book,…
on “Ask HN: What code should I be looking at?” ↗First of all, I would strongly recommend you read Doug Crockford’s, JavaScript: the Good Parts. JavaScript has a lot of quirks and rough edges, but please do not try to use a language in a professional capacity without learning it first. To be fair, JavaScript pretends to be Java…
on “Silly Javascript” ↗JavaScript: The Good Parts, http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Good-Parts-Douglas-Crockfor... Watch Crockford on Javascript at ydn: http://developer.yahoo.net/blogs/theater/archives/douglas_cr... Watch @ryah on…
on “Ask HN: JavaScript book recommendations?” ↗Javascript: The Good Parts http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596517748/ This teaches you the language. Jquery is just a library on top of that which is fairly simple to learn.
on “Learning JavaScript: Where To Start?” ↗This book really convinced me that Javascript can be awesome: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596517748 And of course there's all these fancy new things being built on top of it, like CoffeeScript. I just recently realized that it's not the horrible…
on “Why You Need to Learn JavaScript” ↗…development (well, you ARE on the internet!) then I would recommend learning HTML and CSS with a book such as HTML 5 and CSS 3 by Brian Hogan (http://pragprog.com/titles/bhh5/html5-and-css3). Then a good JavaScript book, perhaps something like JavaScript: The good parts (http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596517748). After learning as much of those as you can, familarize yourself with Git by reading the Pro Git book…
on “Ask HN: I want to learn how to code. Can anyone tell me how to start learning?” ↗A couple more gems: Douglas Crockford's JavaScript: The Good Parts and Jon Bentley's Programming Pearls. By the way, I find it ironic and disappointing when O'Reilly's "nutshell" books run to 700 pages.
on “Why read and write tech books?” ↗…sooo different from C (and Java) that if you don't know the core language everything you'll do will be wrong. For starter: there's no block scope. Only function scope. Every JS programmer should read "JavaScript: The Good Parts" by Douglas Crockford cover to cover - before learning jQuery.
on “Vanilla JS, fast, lightweight, cross-platform framework” ↗