Name: JavaScript: The Good Parts
ISBN: 9780596517748

Douglas Crockford

JavaScript, having been developed and released in a hurry before it could be refined,  has more than its share of the bad parts. This book scrapes away these bad features to reveal a JavaScript subset that's more reliable, readable, and maintainable than the language as a whole-a subset you can use to create extensible and efficient code.  (back cover copy)

Working with the Shallow Grain of JavaScript

JavaScript: The Good Parts

0xADADA

A must-read for JavaScript developers. Ch 1-4 are essential. Crockford writes in an accessible style. I read this book over a period of years, but only finally re-read it cover-to-cover.

Some of it is in need of an update, Ch 5 could eliminate the sections on Object specifiers and functional inheritance, and focus on native classes. Ch.9 "Methods" can be removed, as its just a reference for array, function, string methods, which have expanded since this books release.notably, the JSON appendix can be removed, as Crockford helped get JSON built into the language spec. Ch 9, "Style" is basically about his JSLint project, which has also become 'nearly-standard' with projects like ESLint taking much from his first attempts. 

The Appendix A: Awful Parts, should be a chapter, not an appendix. The syntax diagrams in Appendix D should be featured more prominently in the beginning of the book. 

Chapter 7: Regular Expressions could be omitted to keep the book more concise.

Matthew Royal

Great as a primer or as a reminder. It's not complete, and is definitely opinionated, but it's a good start and a well - reasoned argument to use only the subset of JavaScript defined here.

JavaScript: The Good Parts Working with the Shallow Grain of JavaScript

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