Book Review: Getting Good With JavaScript

I realize the two posts per week on a blog will help give insight to many developers out there, but it can’t compare to the teaching power of a book. If anything, this blog just whets your appetite to learn even more (unless you hate this blog, in which case it’s making you wish JavaScript didn’t exist) and you just don’t want to wait several days for that appetite to be fulfilled, just to read another 700-1000 words and then wait some more. This is why I’ve decided that you should have more, so I’m doing the work of reading through JavaScript books in order to determine which ones will be best for you to read.

Before Continuing…

Please Note that this book is no longer sold through it’s original publisher. You can only get it on other sites (like Amazon.com) and since it is no longer in print, it’s quite expensive (at least it was last time I checked). So, while my opinions of the book remain the same, I don’t think it’s worth $75. Please see my Recommended Resources page for other book recommendations.

JavaScript Book Review

The first book review I’m doing on this site is for Getting Good with JavaScript, written by Andrew Burgess and was published by Envato. This book aims to bring beginners who have never touched JavaScript before into the world of JavaScript without polluting their minds with useless junk. While this book is somewhat aimed at beginners, it also brings in some more advanced topics such as testing and optimizing your JavaScript.

This book has a little bit of something for everybody and no one will lose out by buying this book, though a beginner will probably get more out of it.

The author speaks very plainly and gets his point across very well. He won’t leave you dazed and confused by trying to sound extremely professional and using big or obscure words unless he has already defined and explained that word previously. Also, if you somehow _do _get confused, there are free screencasts included with the purchase of the book where he demonstrates things even more clearly and visually so there’s no way you can be totally lost.

In addition to the Envato website, you can also purchase the book on Amazon.