I used JavaScript mainly for browser detection, pop ups, slideshows, and form field validation for years, but I didn’t particularly like it. JQuery is a completely different story, partly because of the syntax, but every time I set out dig deeper into pure JavaScript at the programming level, I couldn’t help thinking, “Why would I want to do that? Why is it so convoluted? Why would it take that much code?”
The good thing for the many who also find it ugly and convoluted on its own — or for those who are more interested in making things than what particular language it is — is that what’s needed to be a great front end developer usually isn’t the same as what’s needed to be a great specialized I-do-one-thing-all-day-every-day programmer. Granted, a lot of hiring managers don’t seem to know that, so they post descriptions with a long list of buzzwords and then ask about recursion (or something completely unrelated to what you’d actually be doing — then wonder why they can’t find anyone). But that’s a topic for another post. I know a few people who really do enjoy pure JavaScript, but I had always found it to be more of a necessary chore.
Enter JavaScript: The Good Parts – Unearthing the Excellence in JavaScript by Douglas Crockford, who writes:
In JavaScript, there is a beautiful, elegant, highly expressive language that is buried under a steaming pile of good intentions and blunders. The best nature of JavaScript is so effectively hidden that for many years the prevailing opinion of JavaScript was that it was an unsightly, incompetent toy. My intention here is to expose the goodness in JavaScript, an outstanding, dynamic programming language. JavaScript is a block of marble, and I chip away the features that are not beautiful until the language’s true nature reveals itself. I believe that the elegant subset I carved out is vastly superior to the language as a whole, being more reliable, readable, and maintainable. [2]
This book is almost exactly what I’d been looking for (I actually read it years ago, but am just now getting around to writing about it). Not for beginners, or those who like to use thick, mind-numbingly boring books they’ve barely opened as desk decoration — as the title suggests, it’s only ‘the good parts.’
Weighing in at 100 pages (not counting Appendices), Crockford warns, “This book is small, but it is dense.” He wasn’t kidding. His passion for language itself shows through clearly, and I’m still not quite convinced, but it was definitely worth reading. For the visual and auditory learners out there, you might want to watch the video first:
Crockford’s Google TechTalk on JavaScript: The Good Parts
Tags: best practices, book reviews, books, coding, JavaScript, job market, JQuery, professional development, programming, standards, web development
