JavaScript: Novice to Ninja

by Darren Jones

JavaScript is a must-have skill for all web developers. JavaScript: Novice to Ninja is a fun, practical, and comprehensive guide to the modern usage of this deceptively powerful language. Comprehensively updated to cover ECMAScript 6 and modern JavaScript development, the second edition of this step-by-step introduction to coding in JavaScript will show you how to to solve real-world problems, design eye-catching animations, build smarter forms, and develop richer applications.


Learn the basics of JavaScript programming: functions, methods, properties, loops and logic
Use events to track user interactions
Build smarter web forms that improve the user experience
Work with the document object model (DOM) and Ajax to dynamicall update your pages
Add functionality to your apps using HTML5's powerful APIs
Use Test Driven Development methodology to write more robust code
Build a complete, working JavaScript quiz app from scratch

Genres: Programming, Nonfiction, Computer Science

666 pages, ebook

First published November 26, 2014

Reviews

[Robert Hernandez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I pick this book up because it was a free ebook, but man did this book age well. If it wasn’t for the fact that I got this as an ebook and not as a physical book, I would more than likely read it earlier. It starts off very simple going over basic coding basic such as stand types, objects, and function. The book really turned impressively intermediate when it went to the functional and object oriented section, which taught me stuff even though I had full education about this at school and work area. The final chapter really resonates with what a developer should do next, and I am throughly impressed. Now I want to see if there is a physical version of this, b/c its that good, even if this was written before es6

[Johan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mixed feelings about this one.
On the hand I learned some new stuff, but on the other hand this book contained too many mistakes for a second edition. Aren't proofreaders supposed to verify the code as well? What kind of mistakes? Missing indentation in code samples which makes it hard to read the code, missing code in exercises, coding errors, wrong output, ...
What is wrong output? Output was provided for a piece of code on promises. In which order will statements be executed? I never got it right and I didn't understand why, so finally I typed in the code and executed it. Turns out I was right and the output in the book was wrong. APIs that were no longer available and deprecated npm packages are annoying but that can't be blamed on the author.
I also had the impression that sometimes it was more a showcase of what javascript can do than actually teaching the ins and outs.
I got this as part of a bundle, I would probably complain more if I had paid the full price.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found it to be surprisingly well written, with plenty of great examples and quite ahead of its time - literally. The ES6 chapter (the last one) may be rather short, but it covers most of the features that are sadly still uncharted territory to many developers even today. The only thing I would *object* to is the *OOP* chapter (pun intended), but that's not the author's fault - it's just a part of the language that's still a mess. Let's be *objective* (overdoing it now), there's nothing *inherently* wrong (dude, really?) with the sugar rush that comes with ES6's class syntax, but it couldn't hurt to take a closer look at Typescript.

[Audra · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a helpful book, overall, but it could have been edited more carefully. I found a number of mistakes early on. Also, parts of the book were written in a confusing way. That was okay, though, because I googled the subjects that weren't explained well. I will continue going through this book to the end. It's good.

[Mahesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best Javascript book for beginners and intermediate level.
Very well explained.

[Eric Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good introduction to JavaScript. For a second edition I would have expected better editing. There were quite a lot of errors throughout the book. Lots of good info regardless.

[Delhi Irc]

Location: GG7 IRC
Accession No: DL028458

[Joseph Babu]

This is a fantastic book to read