I read a book: JavaScript Enlightenment

I dunno if this is a full fledged review or not, but I recently picked up and read the new book JavaScript Enlightenment by Cody Lindley, and I found it ranks in my list of JavaScript books I would direct others to read in their quest to JavaScript wizardry. Lindley states he writes his book first and foremost for himself, as a personal reference, which I find handy because that is exactly how I like to read JavaScript books. His approach to teaching the language might strike some as contrary to what is found in the wild - he spends plenty of time not using object literals when creating objects in order to hammer home the underlying principles of JavaScript objects - but he does also hammer home that using literal notation is preferred for its terseness and readability.

What else did I like about this book? Well I enjoyed the use of code examples, as its always good to see JavaScript in action. He also makes many great succinct notes that help make good distinctions such as "Remember: object instances created from constructor functions are just plain old objects". Another concept that those in search of JavaScript enlightenment should find well laid out in "JavaScript Enlightenment" is how the prototype chain is traversed whilst accessing a property on an object. Along with traversing the chain, Lindley describes through an example of what not to do, how prototypes can be altered even on the Object.prototype, promptly reminding the reader that this is a "forbidden" example. Since the prototype is key in JS, the book dedicates a considerable portion to describing and outlining how it all works.

The book describes in great detail and examples many concepts that any front-end engineer should be familiar with. Things such as the Function objects instance properties and methods - you know: arguments, constructor, length, apply(), call(), toString() - including going into specific examples on how to use arguments.callee when calling a function recursively. The discussion of JavaScript scope and closures is straightforward and to the point without over complicating concepts that are sometimes hard for some developers to grasp.

Other parts of this book I would describe as desk reference material. These are items that are common and I think are generally understood by many, but in the case someone runs into a gotcha during development, they may find it useful to hit the chapters on the various objects: Array(), String(), Number(), Boolean(), as well as then utilizing String, Number, and Boolean primitives. Other desk references: Math(), null, and undefined.

I'd totally recommend this book on the same JavaScript binge handed to new developers when the get underway (things like The Good Parts, Eloquent JavaScript, JavaScript Web Applications, or any of the many many useful links to the plethora of great resources available to the modern developer). I guess this did turn into a full fledged review.