On Mon, 17 Mar 2025 at 10:30, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
Note: I don't do JS but I always assume that I could if I wanted to.
From: Ron via talk <talk@gtalug.org>
Beware learning modern language usage from parchments from the middle ages.
Yes, very good advice. I imagine especially since JS has had so much change forced by its success.
On the other hand, sometimes it is easier to learn core ideas of a system before it grew like topsy. That's a general comment and I would not recommend this particular book.
I think that I learned a lot about UNIX (and hence Linux) by starting with the 5th Edition (or maybe 4th) in 1975. I know the skeleton, which is hard to see with current versions.
The core idea of JS was: LISP, with more conventional syntax. Heavily influenced by Dave Ungar's SELF. Object orientation without classes. Radical stuff that was disguised so as not to scare the civilians.
Learning how to choose deal with enormous libraries and frameworks of dubious security must be a challenge. NPM is such a large and fluid collection and it apparently has ineffective gatekeepers.
It's been said before, but it's so important I'm going to repeat it: DON'T USE OLD BOOKS (or websites) for programming languages, especially Javascript. Javascript has changed hugely in the past two decades. And even if the body of the JavaScript language hasn't changed officially since the last ECMAScript release, JS's behaviour and common usage is massively influenced by other fluid standards - like CSS and HTML, and the widely used frameworks. So how it's used and taught is continuously shifting. Toronto Public Library has a lot of programming books, with the caveat that the recent ones tend to be popular and may require you to place a hold and wait for them. One book I spent some time with and liked was "Begin to Code: Building apps and games in the cloud" by Rob Miles. It's from 2023 and Microsoft Press - thus requesting the use of tools I didn't have access to and wasn't willing to install. Despite that, it starts at a very basic level with HTML-CSS-JS and builds upward. Be warned that its main target is getting software and a website running on a cloud server rather than specifically teaching you how to use Javascript. But if you can accept that, you'll get a decent grounding in JS and I found the book very well structured and easy to learn from. And some good news: there are ten copies of this book at TPL and half of them are on the shelf and available right now. And it's also available through TPL online through O'Reilly Learning. -- Giles https://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr@gmail.com