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Java Script: The Good Parts

by Douglas Crockford

4.23 · Rating Details · 5,655 Ratings · 416 Reviews

Most programming languages contain good and bad parts, but JavaScript has more than its share of the bad, having been developed and released in a hurry before it could be refined. This authoritative book scrapes away these bad features to reveal a subset of JavaScript that's more reliable, readable, and maintainable than the language as a whole-a subset you can use to crea ...more

153 pages

Published 2009 by Southeast University Press (first published January 1st 2008)

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Oct 11, 2010 A. Jesse rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A short, dense book, describing a subset of Javascript and distinguishing which parts of the language "should" be used and which not. The author wrote JSLint, a widely-used tool for enforcing his preferences on your scripts. The preferences he wrote into JSLint are reflected here.

Some of his opinions seem obsessive and eccentric (it's not OK to write "i++"?), but others are invaluable. For example, you should make a habit of following the Kernighan & Ritchie style of braces: that is, you sho A short, dense book, describing a subset of Javascript and distinguishing which parts of the language "should" be used and which not. The author wrote JSLint, a widely-used tool for enforcing his preferences on your scripts. The preferences he wrote into JSLint are reflected here.

Some of his opinions seem obsessive and eccentric (it's not OK to write "i++"?), but others are invaluable. For example, you should make a habit of following the Kernighan & Ritchie style of braces: that is, you should write opening braces ("{") at the end of a line rather than the beginning of the next line, because if you ever write this:

return
{
a: 1
};

... it will silently return "undefined" and ignore your actual return value. Such precautions, which defend against dangers the novice hasn't imagined, are born of years of deep Javascript experience. They're this book's primary worth.

The book claims to be for developers new to Javascript, but some basic concepts are not very well explained. For example, the book provides a brief and incomprehensible description of the relationship among Javascript objects, prototypes, and functions, which will not enlighten someone not already familiar with Javascript. It then shows workarounds for implementing a cleaner object model, which is welcome; but if you don't immediately understand the need for the workaround, read a different Javascript book than this one.

A large portion of the book is occupied by flowcharts describing the syntax of the language. (E.g., one page is a flowchart describing how to format floating-point numbers.) If I were a finite-state automaton who wanted to know how to recognize floating-point numbers, this would be useful for me. Since I am a human being who can already read and write floating-point numbers, it's an inexplicable waste of space. I'm baffled that the author thought such diagrams served any purpose, and that O'Reilly allowed him to include them and assigned someone to lay them out for publication. If anyone can explain this to me I'd be grateful.

In all, a useful 30-page paper whining to be released from a 200-page book. Worth the read, but skip the flowcharts. Evaluate the author's recommendations for yourself. Use his JSLint tool, but take its output with a grain of salt. ...more

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Jan 07, 2010 Lea Verou rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Programmers (of other languages) who want to learn JavaScript

Crockford's book is already considered one of the classic JS books and I agree. Not because its complete (it only touches ECMAScript core, not even DOM), or particularly good at making things seem simple (it probably makes them look overcomplicated). Its because it approaches JavaScript in a completely different way than probably any other book you've read. It broadens your horizons as a JS developer, makes you think differently. And as soon as you finish it, you haven't only learned a few facts ...more

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Aug 17, 2012 William Cline rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: software-development

For an experienced developer who’s hacked things together while glancing at an online reference, JavaScript: The Good Parts seems like a good place to start learning the language properly. As the title indicates, the book consists of Crockford’s opinions about how to use JavaScript’s better features and avoid the bad ones. Being a relative JS novice, it’s hard for me to evaluate his judgements, but I’m glad to now have at least someone’s best practices to work with. Crockford’s descriptions of J ...more

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Jan 06, 2015 Barry King rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Returning to serious JS programming after a long hiatus. When you pick up the rhino book (O'Reilly's definitive tome on JS) and thumb through it, you notice that it is written from the perspective of JS being introduced to the industry. It's all functional programming, browser-oriented, and thought of as an API to "make the monkey dance", rather than a serious programming language.

This book takes the opposite view in nearly every way. It's written from the perspective of someone who has lived wi Returning to serious JS programming after a long hiatus. When you pick up the rhino book (O'Reilly's definitive tome on JS) and thumb through it, you notice that it is written from the perspective of JS being introduced to the industry. It's all functional programming, browser-oriented, and thought of as an API to "make the monkey dance", rather than a serious programming language.

This book takes the opposite view in nearly every way. It's written from the perspective of someone who has lived with Javascript from the outset and knows where it comes from. It's almost like reading the best practices of a person who has raised a child with a complicated mental condition, someone who has taken the time and care to find out the child's behaviour problems, how to avoid them, and then focussed on what the child knows and does well, and somehow brought that child into a lifestyle that works for everybody involved.

I'll admit, I do not have this kind of love for Javascript. If I had my druthers, the entire specification would have been burned to the ground and started again with something closer to python. HOWEVER, as needs must, the devil will drive, and this book does an excellent job of shaking hands with the devil.

In some ways, though, it's a book on the philosophy of Javascript, on a particular perspective and ruleset that engenders good practice. To explain further, I would simply be quoting from the Introduction, since Crockford does an excellent job of explaining exactly what he's doing with this book and why. It's a slim volume, and like another O'Reilly title, "Mastering Regular Expressions", it's got one of the highest value-for-word ratios of any book in the field.

Sometimes I get asked by people coming into the industry, or trying to move from traditional programming into web development, what they should concentrate on to learn what they need to know in order to do quality web work. For front-end work, I used to point them in the direction of jQuery and Underscore to begin, and then on to Angular or another of the equally handy dev environments. I think from now on, I'm going to say "read this first, before you do anything." It's really that good. ...more

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Feb 15, 2012 David rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2012

I don't think the importance of JavaScript in our current world can be overstated. Nor can the work of Douglas Crockford to legitimize JavaScript by extracting and promoting subsets of the language which are brilliantly designed. In the case of JSON, he recognized JavaScript's object notation as a wonderful and concise way to describe data structures. In my opinion, JSON is vastly superior to XML in every way.

I came to this book after watching Crockford's wonderful companion lecture at Google Te I don't think the importance of JavaScript in our current world can be overstated. Nor can the work of Douglas Crockford to legitimize JavaScript by extracting and promoting subsets of the language which are brilliantly designed. In the case of JSON, he recognized JavaScript's object notation as a wonderful and concise way to describe data structures. In my opinion, JSON is vastly superior to XML in every way.

I came to this book after watching Crockford's wonderful companion lecture at Google Tech Talks. It's about 45 minutes long if you skip the introduction and the Q&A at the end. It's full of dry humor and some very sound advice. I highly recommend you search for it and watch it now (it's on YouTube currently, under the title "JavaScript: The Good Parts").

However, this book was not quite what I was hoping it would be. It's short, which is always nice. And it certainly presents itself like a timeless classic (think, The C Programming Language aka "The White Book"). But I think it misses its true destiny by a wide margin. Unfortunately, The Good Parts is currently more like a miss-mashed collection of facts and techniques than a true learning narrative.

My case in point: Chapter 10 is entitled, "Beautiful Features" and is just over two pages long. It describes the impetus for the book and Crockford's previous experience creating of a subset of JavaScript containing just the good parts. He made the subset sound very nice, indeed, and I was really looking forward to learning the subset. I figured this was going to be the big payoff for slogging through the previous 9 chapters of dense language specifics and techniques.

But when I turned the page, I found that Chapter 10 is the end of the book! (If you don't count the appendixes.) There was no concise summary of the JavaScript subset containing only the good parts. And then in stunned silence, I realized that the previous nine chapters were the good parts. I had completely failed to extract the small, beautiful language from the assorted facts I had been presented.

I don't believe the failing is all mine. The book isn't quite right. But I do believe it could be fixed.

Chapter 10 should be the very first chapter. The second chapter should be a summary of the "good parts" subset. And the rest of the book should be a teaching guide to the subset - teaching it from the ground up as if the Good Parts was a new, exciting programming language all its own. But it doesn't read that way at all.

This book is still a very important read-through for anyone who writes JavaScript on a frequent basis. You're likely to learn many things about JavaScript you never truly understood before. This book would work as a reference, and I do keep it around for that purpose. But truthfully, it's usually far easier to look up specific topics on the web when I'm actually developing.

I believe this book could have ushered in a whole new age of JavaScript understanding to developers new and experienced alike. It could have become a time-worn classic in the way that The White Book is. But it's currently not. Currently, it would only confuse beginners and is too unfocused for even advanced programmers. What a shame.

By the way, Appendix A, "Awful Parts" is great. It should stay exactly as it is: an explanation of the horrific JavaScript features that are most definitely NOT the good parts. :-) ...more

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Oct 08, 2012 gargamelscat rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: compsci, 2012

I don't understand the consistently high rating this book gets. While the concept is excellent - filet-o-javascript - the execution has serious failings.

It starts well with the early chapters but as soon as it reaches the the more challenging stuff - clousures and prototypical inheritance - I found myself having to reach for the superior 'Object-Oriented JavaScript' to understand what was being described each time.

I don't care how many times you re-read it - per the author's admonition at the be ...more

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Dec 10, 2014 Alo rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: software-engineering

As an experienced JavaScript programmer, I was looking around for introductory books for my friends who are just starting their programming journeys so this book came up in the usual lists of modern JavaScript books.

This book was a huge disappointment. The authors ability to turn even simple concepts into confusing railroad diagrams coupled with explanations that do not make any sense even to someone well versed in the subject is absolutely astounding.

It feels like the book doesn't quite know w ...more

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Aug 02, 2012 Chase DuBois rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: tech

Many programming books are funny because their authors make jokes. Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby comes to mind. Javascript: The Good Parts, however, is the first programming book that has ever made me laugh out loud when the author wasn't telling a joke. Case in point:

undefined and NaN are not constants. They are global variables, and you can change their values. That should not be possible, and yet it is. Don't do it.

Any developer who has ever written Javascript is likely to have been confound Many programming books are funny because their authors make jokes. Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby comes to mind. Javascript: The Good Parts, however, is the first programming book that has ever made me laugh out loud when the author wasn't telling a joke. Case in point:

undefined and NaN are not constants. They are global variables, and you can change their values. That should not be possible, and yet it is. Don't do it.

Any developer who has ever written Javascript is likely to have been confounded by a number of its pitfalls, and in many cases I think one's first instinct is to assume that you've done something wrong. Crockford clarifies that Javascript's heritage as the language of the web browser gives it a number of unique deformities, and he labels them as such pretty unambiguously. I like that. Honesty makes it easier for developers to move forward and write better code.

Chapter 5, on Inheritance, was the most helpful in terms of understanding how to write large applications in a way that provides most of the niceties (clean syntax, encapsulation, etc.) that we've come to expect from high-level languages.

I just wish he'd gotten there sooner. Despite being a relatively short book, and despite its title, Good Parts spends more time than I expected on explaining the bad patterns. I suppose it's worthwhile for readers to have a deeper understanding of the language as a whole, but — for example — I know a lot more now that I ever knew before about classical constructors in Javascript, and yet I will probably never use them if I follow Crockford's advice.

I also found the overall organization to be a little strange. The appendices take up nearly a third of the book, and provide some of the most illuminating surprises (including the quotation above), yet — they are appendices. Meanwhile, what appears to be a normal programming book (a narrative littered with code examples) becomes a method reference in Chapter 8 and switches to big-picture prose for the final two chapters.

So: read chapters 1 through 5, plus appendices A and B. Skim the rest, or keep it handy as a reference. ...more

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Jun 20, 2012 Brian rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: people who think they know JavaScript

Recommended to Brian by: Dan

(4.0) Opened my eyes to how JavaScript really works, but had some bad bugs

I've been using JS for a while now, just throwing stuff together and getting things working, copying patterns observed elsewhere. At times I saw some unfamiliar structures (particularly of the anonymous functions that return functions getting invoked immediately variety, etc.), but chose to ignore them. All the while I assumed it was actually an OO language. How wrong I was.

This was quite helpful for someone familiar with ...more

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May 22, 2013 Ettore Pasquini rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: technology

My new JavaScript reference. This book takes a stand in defining the good features of JavaScript banning the rest as evil or not useful. It even introduces a linter that enforces the above! It does all of this in 150 pages or so. The "good" parts are actually described in the first 100 pages. That's it.

The book is not for complete novices to programming: e.g. the while loop is explained in 2 lines. Syntax diagrams are used to explain every construct. However, if you have programmed in other lang ...more

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Jun 25, 2016 Brittany rated it liked it · review of another edition

I wasn't overly impressed with this, A few good things but other books are better laid out and more user friendly

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Mar 03, 2014 Stephanie Sun rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: ebook

This book is like the Invisible Cities or Molloy of programming books. It really pares stuff down in an eccentric way, so that on first glance the author comes across as a masochistic pedant (++ and -- are bad parts?!), but on second glance he is more like an advanced alien lifeform revealing new dimensions of consciousness to you.

JavaScript is a really weird language. Nobody told me that when I started to learn it. But it's expressive and adaptable, and when it works for something, it really, r ...more

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Mar 06, 2010 Paul Ivanov rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

This book caught my eye last week because of how comically skinny it is, given the title. Nevertheless, i just flipped through it as i'm about to code some javascript and i'm glad i did. It is dense in little gotchas that i've been tripping over.

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Feb 14, 2015 Austin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

On December 8, 2014, President Barack Obama became the first president of the United States to write a computer program (at least while in office). It was part of a national campaign to get young people interested in software development. What language did the leader of the free world use to make history? JavaScript.

That marks just another milestone in the history of this tragic, wonderful, misunderstood language. Calling it a Shakespearean tragedy would be appropriate since Crockford's authorit ...more

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Dec 25, 2012 Muhammad Haggag rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A concise, opinionated coverage of JavaScript for experienced developers. This is not a beginners book.

The book begins by describing the language Grammar using railroad diagrams. This is immensely helpful in forming a mental diff against whichever imperative C-based language you're coming from (C, C++, Java, etc.).

I found the coverage of object construction (new, constructor functions) confusing. I had to re-read it to understand what was going on. This is partly due to JavaScript's pandering to ...more

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Jul 21, 2012 Wai Yip Tung rated it liked it · review of another edition

JavaScript is a language of great contradiction. It is one of the most widely used programming language. But the language has also carries a lot of design problems, many have born from its original sponsors' Microsoft and Netscape's bitter rivalry.

Douglas Crockford has the idea to highlight the good part of the language but also to warn the unsuspecting programmers of its bad parts. He deliberately select a subset of the language and put it into a small book. While this is a commendable approach ...more

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Jan 16, 2013 Matthew Campbell rated it liked it · review of another edition

This would be a 3.5 star is I could rate it that. I think my expectations were off going into this, as I expected an "in depth" look at language features for people who already knew JavaScript. Instead, I felt like it was also trying to teach the language to newcomers and spent a lot of time on bits and pieces that I would assume someone who works with the language would already know.

It moves incredibly quickly, which for the most part is a point in its favor. In several spots, though, I wish th ...more

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Apr 04, 2010 Rob rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: intermediate-level JavaScript nerds looking to learn the "A" game

Recommended to Rob by: Jonathan Phillips

Shelves: technical, own, 2008, on-going, 2010, javascript, always-on-my-desk

"There is danger and misery at the edges."

As the title implies, Douglas Crockford takes a subset of JavaScript, identifies it as "the good parts" and proceeds to explain why these parts are good (and should therefore be used). Crockford commends JavaScript for being a very expressive language but is also honest about the failings of individual parts (e.g., how arrays aren't really arrays but are in fact "array-like objects") and proposes some genuine solutions for them that do not involve abando "There is danger and misery at the edges."

As the title implies, Douglas Crockford takes a subset of JavaScript, identifies it as "the good parts" and proceeds to explain why these parts are good (and should therefore be used). Crockford commends JavaScript for being a very expressive language but is also honest about the failings of individual parts (e.g., how arrays aren't really arrays but are in fact "array-like objects") and proposes some genuine solutions for them that do not involve abandoning the language all together[†:].

Crockford gives a good overview of JavaScript's grammar without attempting to be exhaustive. He assumes that you are already at least familiar with JavaScript (which is why you would be interested in knowing "just the good parts", presumably) and there is an underlying assumption that you have experience with at least one other language (probably a "C-like" language).

Crockford's is a short book. It's a bit terse at times but his examples are clear and he supplements these with railroad diagrams[‡:]. That terseness also translates more/less directly into density, like he's running 10:1 compression on his thoughts here. They require some unpacking and digestion.

Of particular note: Crockford dedicates the entire 9th chapter to code-writing style. Why? He argues that it is an essential skill, that good code-writing eliminates ambiguities (see also: Appendices A & B) and makes the code easier to read and therefore easier (and cheaper) to maintain overtime -- doubly so if that code's lifespan exceeds that of its original developer.

This book is a great one to keep next to David Flanagan's "el Rhino diablo". That said, I believe this one should be consulted first to confirm good function and good form before winding back onto something more encyclopedic.

---
† = Which is, of course, fortunate because you have no choice but to use JavaScript when creating applications for the web. (And don't give me that bullshit about using Flash because that's a very narrow view of the web.)

‡ = To be perfectly frank, the railroad diagrams are bewildering at first. If you have never seen them before, they provide a serious "WTF?" moment the first time. When I encountered the second set of railroad diagrams was when I knew that I was going to need to re-read the first quarter of the book just to be safe.

---
2010 UPDATE: 3rd read. Still good, still relevant. Definitely the kind of book you get a little more out of each time. (For one thing, I slightly flubbed the quote above about the arrays, but not so bad as to retract it.) ...more

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Feb 02, 2013 Ryan Gough rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Crockford writes persuasively about the elegant and powerful features that lurk within Javascipt that often get forgotten about due to the (admittedly numerous) failings in other parts of the language.

By restricting yourself to only the good parts, and taking some simple steps to mitigate the bad as far as possible, Crockford shows how it is possible to write Javascript programs that are readable and maintainable. Which might come as a surprise to many of the Javascript sceptics out there, and I ...more

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Jan 06, 2010 Alex rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is a must-read book if you use Javascript seriously. When I put the book down, I'd learned and understood a few critical ideas about using Javascript that are changing the way I program. In particular, I found the section related to object creation (prototypal inheritance, implications for using the new keywords, etc.) I also greatly enjoyed the appendices -- I eat up lists like the awful and bad parts of Javascript, and the introduction to JSLint is going to be very fruitful. Not everythin ...more

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Feb 01, 2016 Nivesh rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Kind of like a sacred book for JavaScript lovers. The more you read the more interesting it gets every time.

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Jul 19, 2016 Stijn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Very short with good examples. Gives you an overview of the Javascript parts that are supposedly "good". Let's see whether that promise holds up in the real world, but I certainly have an appreciation for Javascript that I did not have before.

The only Javascript book I ever read and if it did it's job also hopefully the last one. (I will never read you, JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, you and your beastly 1000+ pages.)

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Jun 15, 2016 Zachary rated it liked it · review of another edition

Q: Is this the best book to start learning JavaScript?

A: Depends

Are you new to programming? Then no, this is not for novices--the author says so himself.

Do you want to learn "idiomatic JavaScript"? Then no, I've never encountered many of these patterns in the wild. I'd recommend instead to use Exercism.io.

Are you familiar with programming, but want to see good JavaScript usage? Then yes, this book will show you that JavaScript might be lightweight, but it supports patterns that support heavyweig ...more

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Jan 19, 2016 Top rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: technology, english, computer

If you were working with jQuery and JavaScript you eventually learned about Douglas Crockford and his book "JavaScript: The Good Parts".

As one of the driving forces behind JavaScript, with this book he really gave a good explanation of JavaScript's components, although readers must be warned that the various sections should be read more than once to be able to apply and understand the concepts explained before getting some of the more advanced ideas.

The main reason I read this book was need to h ...more

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Mar 04, 2014 Kevin Garner rated it really liked it · review of another edition

"JavaScript: The Good Parts" is a somewhat terse read; fortunately, in that terseness, the book is incredibly efficient at defining a safer, smarter way to use the JavaScript programming language--without wasting the reader's time. On the other hand, since there are not a lot of examples or exercises included with the book, the topics are still somewhat nebulous until the reader goes and tries them out elsewhere. "JavaScript: The Good Parts" would best serve as a handy reference book while one i ...more

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Feb 28, 2014 Anshul Thakur rated it really liked it · review of another edition

JavaScript is a must know language for anyone who has to do anything with development on the web. If you are a hardcore fanatic type, who wants to adhere to a single language like PHP or JSP or Python (or any of them) for the back as well as frontend development, chances are you won’t be getting much far in the design side, and the developmental side too will soon saturate off at what it has to offer. JavaScript has been the de facto language of creating beautiful content on websites since a ver ...more

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Feb 24, 2014 Bryan Higgs rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: web-development, javascript

I read this in eBook format.

The author of this book is a well-known JavaScript expert and critic. He knows what he's talking about when it comes to JavaScript. For those who don't know, JavaScript is a programming language that is built into every (modern) Web browser. It is often confused with Java, because when it first came out (on the now-defunct Netscape Navigator browser), Java was all the rage, and the inventor of JavaScript (called LiveScript before then) was told to reinvent the languag I read this in eBook format.

The author of this book is a well-known JavaScript expert and critic. He knows what he's talking about when it comes to JavaScript. For those who don't know, JavaScript is a programming language that is built into every (modern) Web browser. It is often confused with Java, because when it first came out (on the now-defunct Netscape Navigator browser), Java was all the rage, and the inventor of JavaScript (called LiveScript before then) was told to reinvent the language to make it look more like Java. This was a decision that has caused endless confusion ever since, with lots of people thinking they are the same thing, or at least close cousins. Not true! Java is a class-based object-oriented language that uses strict typing for its variables, while JavaScript is an object-oriented language that uses "prototype" based inheritance (not class-based), and its variables are not in the least strictly typed -- in fact, they are completely loosely typed.

I learned Java first, and then, later, JavaScript. I kept hearing that JavaScript was much easier to use than Java. That seemed to be the conventional belief, but in fact, despite looking simpler, JavaScript is, in my opinion, a much more difficult to learn language than is Java. I have taught Java in beginning programming classes in college; I would never dream of using JavaScript in beginning programming classes!

The author of this book does a very good job of pointing out the poorly designed parts of JavaScript, and separating them from the "good parts". He believes that there is a beautiful core in JavaScript, but that it is surrounded by too many other parts that were ill-designed, and just plain bad ideas. This is one of the reasons why JavaScript is not easy to learn, nor a language that should be used for beginning programming courses. Unfortunately, there is far too much of a tendency too copy and paste pieces of JavaScript code and call it programming.

Ideally, every JavaScript programmer should read this book, and use its recommendations in their JavaScript programs from that point on -- strictly adhering to the book's recommendations. There are at least two problems with this: First, there are too many programmers who just want to get on with the job of solving problems -- they are too impatient to want to spend the time to properly learn the language, including its warts. Second, this book is not one that I believe would be easily read by JavaScript beginners, let alone beginners to programming in general. It is relatively formally written (with railroad diagrams to define the syntax of the language, for example), and contains too few real-world examples for those neophyte programmers (or impatient programmers) to easily follow. The examples used are simply too much at the "toy" level; they need to be expanded into more realistic realms for most programmers to fully understand the points being made.

JavaScript desperately needs books like this to help all JavaScript programmers become more capable of producing good quality JavaScript programs, but this is only one, rather too slim, book, and it needs to be supplemented by other, less formal books that use more realistic examples.

I like this book; I can appreciate it as an experienced programmer, but don't believe that enough programmers who really need it will understand how important it is to read and follow the book's advice. ...more

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Jul 24, 2016 Carlos rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, _tr-technical-reference, javascript, programming

This is a book that any JavaScript expert will enjoy reading in his leisure time, maybe on the beach. It is neither for beginners nor for people (like me) that already have grasped the basics and is looking for more.
It is not for beginners because if some basic concepts are explained thoroughly, there are also other concepts the author does not mention at all, just because he doesn't feel like it. It is not for people with my level of knowledge because many of his advices are things that a stud ...more

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Apr 26, 2016 Zoffix Znet rated it liked it · review of another edition

Great book for seasoned programmers who want to learn JavaScript. It goes through all the constructs of the language, referencing other well-used languages and programming idioms for explanations. The author is very opinionated, which at times is funny, but at others it just side-tracks you from the discussion. The "Bad Parts" Appendix is included in the book.

I felt the pacing of the book was a bit odd. You go from author's rants about the bad parts, then the awfully long and convoluted Grammar ...more

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Jan 12, 2010 Thomas rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: making-things

This along with JavaScript: The Definitive Guide are the two must read books for any JS programmers out there. Crockford lays out in very clear terms what's good (and bad) about JS in it's current form. His guidelines for how to use it effectively seem very solid based on my experiences.

It helps that you can easily read through the majority of this book in a couple hours. But it's also one to keep around and flip through every so often when you need a refresher.

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“We see a lot of feature-driven product design in which the cost of features is not properly accounted. Features can have a negative value to customers because they make the products more difficult to understand and use. We are finding that people like products that just work. It turns out that designs that just work are much harder to produce that designs that assemble long lists of features.” — 8 likes

“Computer programs are the most complex things that humans make.” — 8 likes

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