Awesome JavaScript Book

the_Grinch

Lots of things have been going on at work lately. We've gone almost full blown open source for our projects as we have the same problem everyone runs into (no budget). Besides being free, the beauty of open source has been being able to customize the software to suit your needs. For the most part the defaults have really been just about good enough. Most of the time it has come down to "this would be a great feature to have, but we can work around it." Something I began to realize, though, is that almost every piece of software we've been utilizing has had a JavaScript API. This sort of stunned me because most of my experience with JavaScript has been in the early 2000 when I'd make a box pop up with a message and I would feel oh so special about it.

As I began to do research I started to stumble upon all the projects that utilize JavaScript. I was amazed to find there is not only a ton of them, but that the language itself is actually extremely powerful! A lot of the "nice to haves" can actually be easily integrated into our projects. Of course this meant that I would actually have to start to learn JavaScript. I had one book on it, but it pushed the HTML aspect so heavily that I didn't feel it was worth the read (plus it was fairly old so I wasn't sure how much use I would get out of it). I went to Amazon and started going through the books they had available. In my search I found a book that had some seriously good reviews. I read them and as I got further I also found that they author offered an environment to run all your code in. My initial thought was that he setup some sort of VM that would be used and that he'd have a CD so I better buy the physical copy of the book.

I purchased the book and Amazon provided the Kindle version to me for free. It was going to take two days to get so I figured maybe I'd start reading the Kindle version till the book arrived. After completing the first chapter I found that it linked to a website. On the website you find exercises written by the author to test you on what you learned thus far. More so, each chapter after tests you on what you just read and then brings in the previous lessons to solidify the knowledge learned from them. Thus far I have been really retaining the knowledge I have picked up. Also, the book has kept me in learning mode since I am getting instant feedback on what I am being tested on. The final piece that really sealed it for me was the author himself. After one set of exercises he asked that you review the text and exercises you completed so far. Now many books say that you can reach out to the author and they will respond. I can say this has usually been hit or miss for me. If I got a response it was months after sending it and at that point I solved the issue or gave up or forgot what I had asked.

But figuring this was just a review I filled it out and sent it off. The very next day I had an email from the author thanking me for the review and stating if I did have questions to email him. How awesome is that? I also found out that the author had self published the book and is working on others based off of what readers had requested. So if you are looking to learn JavaScript and you're tired of the normal programming text I suggest you give this book a try! You won't be disappointed!

Book: A Smarter Way to Learn JavaScript: The new approach that uses technology to cut your effort in half
Author: Mark Myers

jibbajabba

Thank you for the review. Comes right on time.

I am working more and more with vCenter Orchestrator now and whilst you can use plugins / default workflows, a LOT is done via custom scripts - which are - JavaScripts .. You still need to know more than that "Powershell / REST / SOAP) but knowing JavaScript can be a big step forward.

"Bookmarked*

UnixGuy

Great review! Thanks

dave330i

Thanks for the review. Once I'm done with NSX, I need to spend some quality time with vCO. JavaScript knowledge will be useful then.