9 Best JavaScript Books for Programmers
Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced DevelopersBy Stanley Udegbunam || Updated 28th Nov, 2022
JavaScript Book Guide (2023)
This Guide features:
- Best pick by readers across the globe
- Beginner-friendly, intermediate and advanced book tags.
- Buyers Review
- Explanatory snippets for each book.
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JavaScript is the programming language of the web and is used by more software developers today than any other programming language.
There are over 1.8 Billion websites in the world, and JavaScript is used on 95% of them.
As a result of its popularity, a lot of programmers know JavaScript on the surface level with little or no deep knowledge of the language.
If you’re an aspiring web developer or a software engineer, then there’s need to stand out from the crowd by going a little bit further into the language.
I’ve compiled 9 best JavaScript books guaranteed to help your development career.
These books cut across the different skillsets ~ beginner, intermediate and advanced level.
You can use the experience level tagline to check which is suitable for you.
Without further ado, let’s get started.
Readers Choice #1
JAVASCRIPT AND JQUERY
Interactive Front-End Web Development
Author: John Duckett Experience Level: Beginners📚
This book is nothing short of amazing and a great start for beginners.
The common problem with most programming books is that they are filled blocks of texts with little or no interactive illustrations or explanatory diagrams but the author of this book decides to take a different turn.
JavaScript and JQuery is that book that don’t only simplifies JavaScript concepts for newbies, but it’s content is coated with great designs and unique illustrations that will make you fall in love with the language.
This is good for an entry-level book as it helps readers stay motivated as they peruse through the pages.
The book is laced with illustrations, flowcharts, lists, labelled diagrams, infographics and color-coded code.
Some images repeat over several pages, adding extra information every time.
Besides the visual hooks, the code examples in the book are well thought out and practical, with helpful flowcharts, line numbers, and comments to explain what the code does.
Also, each chapter builds upon previous code examples to explain more complex methods and ideas.
Snapshot of JavaScript and jQuery page
Jon Duckett is a great technical writer and he explains J.S in a way that progressively assimilated without going off the rails.
It contains 13 solid chapters cutting across all you need to know about JavaScript.
The first six chapters talk about the basics of JavaScript like functions, methods, objects, decisions, loops, DOM and events.
Chapter seven downwards introduces you to more advanced stuff like JQuery, Ajax JSON, error handling, debugging and more.
I know a lot of people JavaScript newbies are quite skeptical about learning jQuery because it’s a little old and phasing out.
However, a lot of code basis in the enterprise and real-world project do use JQuery; making it a must know for every frontend web developer.
If you are new to frontend web development, learning jQuery is a great way to get familiar with JavaScript frameworks.
In essence, if you’re a newbie with zero JavaScript knowledge, then go grab a copy.
According to the author, there are two problems faced by anyone learning JavaScript.
They are:
- Retention and
- Comprehension
As such, this book addresses these issues in a simple and smart approach.
To learn JavaScript properly, you have to retain all the core concepts of the language.
Unfortunately, readers recall only 10 – 20% of what they learned from programming books.
To maximize retention rate, readers can visit Mark’s website after reading a short chapter to complete interactive exercises.
Your input is then checked for correctness and if wrong, you get to repeat the exercise.
By so doing, you’re not just reading but also getting your hands dirty with codes.
All exercises are free and available here.
The problem of comprehension also arises because many book authors lack the skills of impacting knowledge.
These authors might be badass programmers virtuously skilled in their craft, but they might also be bad teachers, especially when explaining advanced concepts.
By presenting this book in an organized manner coupled with the interactive exercise, Mark solves the conjoined comprehension and retention problem.
If you are absolutely new to JavaScript, then you should start learning the smart way by purchasing a copy.
Readers Choice #3
JAVASCRIPT: THE GOOD PARTS
Author: Douglas Crockford Experience Level: Intermediate📚
This is an easy read and generally approachable book but it’s not a book for beginners.
This book is concise and won’t teach you JavaScript basics so if you have no JavaScript experience, you’re better off reading the more introductory books.
Of a truth, JavaScript do have a lot of bad parts.
A different application known as Java Applet was meant to be the language of the web but it failed.
As a result, JavaScript which was developed by Brendan Eich in only 10 days became the default web language and evolved over time.
I guess you now see why the language has visible bad parts.
Regardless, changes have been made over the years to make JavaScript much better.
The author, Douglas Crockford is a JavaScript Guru who developed the popular date format JSON and other JavaScript-related tools like JSLint.
He loves and uses JavaScript on a professional scale but he also recognizes its downside.
His book is an attempt to teach how to mostly use only good parts of JavaScript and mostly avoid the use of the bad parts of JavaScript.
In a way, this actually helps the reader to appreciate JavaScript’s positives rather than mostly seeing its negatives.
After reading this, you will gain insight into the subset of the good part of JavaScript that will actually make an impact to your programming career.
Although the JavaScript version used in this book it’s outdated, the book is still very much relevant today and you can apply the reasoning to the new coming stuff from JavaScript like ES7 and ES8.
You can view short notes about this book on GitHub via this link.
Readers Choice #4
You Don’t Know JS Series
Author: Kyle Simpson Experience Level: Intermediate – Advanced📚
- Up and Going with JavaScript: provides the necessary background for those of you with limited programming experience.
- Scopes and Closures: Goes over the different scope types, hoisting and closures.
- this & object prototypes: goes over the keyword “this”, nature of JS objects, mixin patterns, JS’s prototype mechanism, moving from class/inheritance design to behavior delegation, helps you understand how objects are linked together.
- Types & Grammar: With this book, you will:
- Get acquainted with JavaScript’s seven types: null, undefined, boolean, number, string, object, and symbol
- Understand why JavaScript’s unique array, string, and number characteristics may delight or confound you
- Learn how natives provide object wrappers around primitive values
- Dive into the coercion controversy—and learn why this feature is useful in many cases
- Explore various nuances in JavaScript syntax, involving statements, expressions, and other features.
- Async & Performance: This book explores old and new asynchronous features of JavaScript and JavaScript performance techniques including Promises, generators, and Web Workers—that let you create sophisticated single-page web applications and escape callback hell in the process.
- ES6 and beyond: this book focuses on new features available in ECMAScript 6 (ES6), the latest version of the standard upon which JavaScript is built.
This book series is really not a good starting point for beginners but if you have some basic knowledge of the language, you can proceed to purchase this series.
Readers Choice #5
ELOQUENT JAVASCRIPT
Author: Marijn Haverbeke Votes: Experience Level: Beginners/Intermediate📚
Another great learning resource for JavaScript enthusiasts but not ideal for beginners.
There are two unique things that makes this book stand out from other JavaScript books available on the web.
Firstly, It contains 5 different engaging JavaScript projects that will fortify your understanding of the language.
Here’s a sneak peek at the projects.
- Building a robot
- Creating your own programming language
- Building a pixel art editor
- Building a platform game
- Creating a skill-sharing website
Platform Game Project
At the end of every chapter, there are coding exercises for you to try out.
Each exercise starts with a problem description and there are also hints to guide you.
Secondly, all the solutions to the exercises are not included in this book but available in a separate online platform called the Eloquent JavaScript Code Sandbox where you can actually test run your code.
You, be the judge. Isn’t that amazing?
Snapshot of Eloquent JavaScript Code Sandbox
You can access the sandbox via this link: EJS Exercise solutions
With roughly 400 pages of content, Eloquent JavaScript covers the key concepts of JavaScript like values, types, operators, objects, arrays, regular expressions, async programming, events and introduces you to more advanced stuff like Node.js.
Node.js is a server-side program that helps you develop scalable web applications.
Already using JavaScript for frontend tasks, with node.js, you can extend the language usage to the backend.
The digital copy is available for free on EloquentJavaScript.net
Readers Choice #6
JAVASCRIPT: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE
Author: David Flanagan
Experience Level: Intermediate📚
JavaScript: The Definitive Guide is for web developers who want to take their understanding and mastery of JavaScript to the next level.
Not a beginner-friendly book, it contains the latest version of JavaScript (2020) with engaging example code throughout.
It starts off by explaining the language in detail and extends further to Node.js.
Topics covered in this book include:
- Basic JavaScript concepts like types, values, variables, expressions, operators, statements, arrays etc
- Latest JavaScript features like iterators, generators, Promises, and async/await.
- JavaScript’s standard library: data structures, regular expressions, JSON, i18n, etc.
- The web platform: documents, components, graphics, networking, storage, and threads.
- Tools and language extensions that professional JavaScript developers rely on.
Popularly recommended amongst programmers, it serves as a good JavaScript reference.
Readers Choice #7
SECRETS OF THE JAVASCRIPT NINJA
Author: John Resig, Bear Bibeault and Josip Maras Experience Level: Advanced📚
This book helps you discover best practice techniques such as testing, and cross-browser development, all taught from the perspective of skilled JavaScript practitioners.
The aim of this book is to enable you:
- Write more effective code with functions, objects, and closures
- Learn to avoid JavaScript application pitfalls
- Use regular expressions to write succinct text-processing code
- Manage asynchronous code with promises
Secrets of JavaScript Ninja updated and fully revised to cover concepts from ES6 and ES7.
Are you ready to up your game and become the next JavaScript Ninja?
Readers Choice #8
JAVASCRIPT IN EASY STEPS
Author: John Duckett
Experience Level: Beginners📚
Very simple, straight to point and doesn’t go much in-depth into the core of JavaScript.
Good for beginners and can serve as an entry guide to understanding JavaScript.
After going through this text, you’ll be able to:
- create exciting web pages that employ the power of JavaScript to provide functionality.
- add dynamic scripts to your own web pages.
- incorporate JavaScript code in an HTML document.
- grasp how JavaScript is used with HTML submission forms.
- Understand how JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is used for asynchronous browser-server communication.
The book examples provide clear syntax-highlighted code needed for a fun and engaging read.
EFFECTIVE JAVASCRIPT
68 Specific Ways to Harness the Power of JavaScript Author: David Herman Experience Level: Intermediate📚
- Better ways to use prototype-based object-oriented programming
- Subtleties and solutions for working with arrays and dictionary objects
- Precise and practical explanations of JavaScript’s functions and variable scoping semantics
- Useful JavaScript programming patterns and idioms, such as options objects and method chaining
- In-depth guidance on using JavaScript’s unique “run-to-completion” approach to concurrency
Closing Remark on
9 Best JavaScript Books for Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced DevelopersFinding it difficult to make a choice?
Then start here:
For Javascript beginners: purchase any beginner-friendly books mentioned above like “A smarter way to learn JavaScript“.
For intermediate J.S developers: Check out the “You don’t know JS” book series.
Advanced developers can pick any book or level up with “Secrets of JavaScript Ninja.”
Don’t skip the projects in the book as they will help sharpen your understanding.
Happy Coding!
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