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Rediscovering JavaScript - Master ES6, ES7, and ES8
JavaScript is no longer to be feared or loathed—the world’s most popular and ubiquitous language has evolved into a respectable language. Whether you’re writing frontend applications or server side code, the phenomenal features from ES6 and beyond—like the rest operator, generators, destructuring, object literals, arrow functions, modern classes, promises, async, and metaprogramming capabilities—will get you excited and eager to program with JavaScript. You’ve found the right book to get started quickly and dive deep into the essence of modern JavaScript. Learn practical tips to apply the elegant parts of the language and the gotchas to avoid.
250 pages, Paperback
Published June 10, 2018
36 people are currently reading
149 people want to read
About the author
Venkat Subramaniam
21 books71 followersDr. Venkat Subramaniam, founder of Agile Developer, Inc., has trained and mentored thousands of software developers in the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia. Venkat helps his clients effectively apply and succeed with agile practices on their software projects. He is a frequent invited speaker at international software conferences and user groups. He's author of .NET Gotchas (O'Reilly), coauthor of the 2007 Jolt Productivity award-winning book Practices of an Agile Developer (Pragmatic Bookshelf), and author of Programming Groovy (Pragmatic Bookshelf).
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
November 21, 2018
The Internet is full of ES6+ guidelines & tutorials, but Venkat's book shines among them.
It's a book with "depth" - goes far below getting you familiar with syntax, aims to make sure you _embrace_ the concepts described, including the reasoning behind them, their "side effects", idiomatic usage & gotchas. Even simple concepts like a spread operator are presented in an interesting way, so I didn't feel bored (none pages were skipped).
What did I like most?
DEFINITELY the whole part IV (about metaprogramming) - starting with promises (which IMHO doesn't really fit in this section ;P) and ending with awesome chapter 12 - I've never seen such comprehensive description of Reflect & Proxy: I've learned a lot here TBH.
To wrap up: good, valuable, short book that does not teach you JS from scratch but focuses on the newest features of the language in a way that doesn't assume prior experience with them, but remains interesting even for people who've already used them in practice.
Venkat has delivered.
It's a book with "depth" - goes far below getting you familiar with syntax, aims to make sure you _embrace_ the concepts described, including the reasoning behind them, their "side effects", idiomatic usage & gotchas. Even simple concepts like a spread operator are presented in an interesting way, so I didn't feel bored (none pages were skipped).
What did I like most?
DEFINITELY the whole part IV (about metaprogramming) - starting with promises (which IMHO doesn't really fit in this section ;P) and ending with awesome chapter 12 - I've never seen such comprehensive description of Reflect & Proxy: I've learned a lot here TBH.
To wrap up: good, valuable, short book that does not teach you JS from scratch but focuses on the newest features of the language in a way that doesn't assume prior experience with them, but remains interesting even for people who've already used them in practice.
Venkat has delivered.
August 8, 2019
The author of this book is a freaking genius. He obviously knows what he’s talking about. He probably knows modern Javascript better than the majority of all programmers. Most importantly, knowing something, and applying it to real world situations, is one thing. Being able to explain it to an idiot in layman’s terms is another. The author does both.
Most programmers only know a fraction of what this language can really do for you. It has evolved a lot over the last few years. If you haven’t spend time studying for a while, this is an excellent buy. You won’t regret it.
Most programmers only know a fraction of what this language can really do for you. It has evolved a lot over the last few years. If you haven’t spend time studying for a while, this is an excellent buy. You won’t regret it.
August 16, 2018
A great overview of all the important new language features. If you have been away from JavaScript and find yourself in a react project, this is the book to read. Loved every page of it and highly recommend it.
January 7, 2019
Met expectations
Covered all key things I was looking for to level up in modern JS, written in a clearly worded manner.
Covered all key things I was looking for to level up in modern JS, written in a clearly worded manner.
January 16, 2019
I've been away from JavaScript for a few years now. I've been primarily writing ClojureScript for all of my front end UI work.
As a result, I haven't kept up how JavaScript has been evolving. I'd pick up bits here and there but without some focused study the new features didn't stick. I also wasn't sure what I was missing.
This book helped fill in those gaps. After reading, I feel like I have at least some familiarity with modern JavaScript and know where I can turn to for help.
I'd recommend this book for pretty much any deveoper that also feels like they've fallen behind JavaScript's evolution. You may be like me and have been writing JavaScript indirectly for years or be someone who has been writing JavaScript directly but just feel like you might be missing some of the new features.
As a result, I haven't kept up how JavaScript has been evolving. I'd pick up bits here and there but without some focused study the new features didn't stick. I also wasn't sure what I was missing.
This book helped fill in those gaps. After reading, I feel like I have at least some familiarity with modern JavaScript and know where I can turn to for help.
I'd recommend this book for pretty much any deveoper that also feels like they've fallen behind JavaScript's evolution. You may be like me and have been writing JavaScript indirectly for years or be someone who has been writing JavaScript directly but just feel like you might be missing some of the new features.
August 5, 2019
It had been about 3 years since the last time a wrote a line it JS. I picked this up to dive back in, gain insights into how the language has changed and as a re-entry point to participating in code reviews. It was just what I needed.
Each chapter walks through a discreet construct of the language, how it works, how to use it and provides clear examples.
Rediscovering JavaScript, while going over fundamentals at the start does escalate quickly, and the later chapters are relatively advanced. As noted by the author, having programming experience or coming in from another language will make reading this more valuable. If you are just looking to get started with JS or programming for the first time there are more elementary books that would be a better start, otherwise this is the guide you are looking for.
Each chapter walks through a discreet construct of the language, how it works, how to use it and provides clear examples.
Rediscovering JavaScript, while going over fundamentals at the start does escalate quickly, and the later chapters are relatively advanced. As noted by the author, having programming experience or coming in from another language will make reading this more valuable. If you are just looking to get started with JS or programming for the first time there are more elementary books that would be a better start, otherwise this is the guide you are looking for.
March 1, 2023
I love how this book delves a lot into theory, talking about why and how, giving descriptions and context, explanation, even some programming advice. This is opposed to books that feel like tutorials or blog posts that spam you with blocks of code and do a very non-theory introductory walkthrough over how to code a certain concept. I very much dislike this kind of style, and this book was not that, this book will actually teach you about JavaScript ES6+ features.
I also read a section that is unique to JavaScript books: meta programming. Not many other JS books have this advanced topic.
For this reason this book is a 4.5/5
To get a truly 5/5 star book, I need to be very excited and engaged, and this is hard to pull off.
I also read a section that is unique to JavaScript books: meta programming. Not many other JS books have this advanced topic.
For this reason this book is a 4.5/5
To get a truly 5/5 star book, I need to be very excited and engaged, and this is hard to pull off.
August 14, 2019
Meh. An okay overview, but not a fantastic book.
Some sections seem to slooowly drag out something simple.
A few sections don’t move too fast, but never have enough of an explanation to make anything click for me (Symbols).
Some sections have a lot of repetition and relatively little content (the last few chapters about meta programming).
The addition of decorators (not part of any ecmascript standard yet) felt odd.
Some sections seem to slooowly drag out something simple.
A few sections don’t move too fast, but never have enough of an explanation to make anything click for me (Symbols).
Some sections have a lot of repetition and relatively little content (the last few chapters about meta programming).
The addition of decorators (not part of any ecmascript standard yet) felt odd.
August 8, 2020
Este libro trata de las "nuevas" caracteristicas de javascript, tales como el scope local de las variables (let y const), el operador spread (...), las clases, y lo mas interesante, las promises y las funciones asincronas (await, async).
El tratamiento es adecuado pero algunos capitulos estan mucho mas interesantes y mejor tratados que otros.
Recomendable junto cl libro del mismo autor sobre testing de javascript.
=======================================================
El tratamiento es adecuado pero algunos capitulos estan mucho mas interesantes y mejor tratados que otros.
Recomendable junto cl libro del mismo autor sobre testing de javascript.
=======================================================
March 14, 2020
Pretty decent take on ES6+. Coming from a C++ and Python/Ruby background.. this cemented some key differences in class uses as well as basic types. The author was enteraining and the code samples were short and to the point... which is hard to do. I which he would have covered how passing functions as arguments work for libraries a bit more. Other than that I did enjoy this book.
November 28, 2018
Solid book, except the last 2 chapters, which cover metaprogramming. I tried, but do not see ever using those techniques.
Written in a clear style. Most example code is effective at demonstrating its point.
For a programming book, I think this is an engaging read.
Written in a clear style. Most example code is effective at demonstrating its point.
For a programming book, I think this is an engaging read.
January 5, 2019
Very good book about new features in JavaScript. JavaScript or other programming language is required.
July 25, 2019
Love it
September 6, 2020
DNF 50%. Started with TS :)
May 29, 2021
Awesome read. And above all it is well filled with examples and exercise to hands on without much theory
January 8, 2022
I used to write Javascript 10/15 years ago, when Jquery was THE "framework" and spaghetti was the only kind of Javascript.
This book promises and delivers, and it has been a good to update me.
Still, sometimes it goes too much into the detail for what I was looking for (and also left some other things out).
Anyway, if you're in a similar situation, it is well worth your time.
Update January 2022: Haha. It turns out I had forgotten so much, I thought I had started the book before but never finished. I have read it once more. I've changed the rating from 4 stars to 5. Maybe in a year or two, I'll read it again, having forgotten I have already read it.
This book promises and delivers, and it has been a good to update me.
Still, sometimes it goes too much into the detail for what I was looking for (and also left some other things out).
Anyway, if you're in a similar situation, it is well worth your time.
Update January 2022: Haha. It turns out I had forgotten so much, I thought I had started the book before but never finished. I have read it once more. I've changed the rating from 4 stars to 5. Maybe in a year or two, I'll read it again, having forgotten I have already read it.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews