bookreview - Learning JavaScript Design Patterns

Learning JavaScript Design Patterns by Addy Osmani

JavaScript is everywhere. We cannot ignore it. And I even think it is foolish to ignore it. Like Scott Hanselman, I think everyone should learn JavaScript. The web is here to stay, and we should embrace it. And if you are doing web, client side stuff, you cannot ignore JavaScript. The frontend of many applications is much larger then it was a few years ago. You could build a web application, and add a little JavaScript for the effect. Nowadays, there is a lot more to be done.

Learning JavaScript Design Patterns

And that is exactly why this book is important. Because JavaScript was seen as a script language, nobody thought about patterns, modules, organization, etc, etc. But if you have a few hundred, or a few thousand lines of JavaScript, you will need organization. And then you will need design patterns. Most software developers will be familiar with patterns. There are some classic books that will tell you everything. But those books are mostly aimed at Java, or C#. Altough JavaScript is object-oriented, its lack of classes and prototypical inheritance asks for a different description of patterns.

This book will give you everything to get started. It is split into two parts. The first part describes what patterns are, how patterns are found and described, and how to write your own patterns. I think that it will be usefull for experienced developers and larger teams that want to write up their own patterns. The second part is more of a reference. You can find many patterns and various ways to implement them. It is something that I will use to look up details of patterns. But it will also give you inspiration to solve you problems in different ways.

I would recommend this book to every one that is serious about programming JavaScript. Let us look at the language as professional developers, and force ourself to develop maintainable code.

Find the book at http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920025832.do

Disclaimer: I have joined the O’Reilly Blogger Review Program (http://oreilly.com/bloggers/). It means that I receive free books that I review. I am not forced to write nice things, so this review is an honest one.