Unpopular opinion there is no such thing as a self-taught developer only self-motivated. Every last one of us, rather you are from a bootcamp, college educated, or a MOOC connoisseur such as myself have watched hours of tutorials, went through forums, and read tons of articles to learn the art of programming. All taught by someone. Constantly learning is our way and part of the journey. Lately, I have seen on numerous of social media posts and YouTube comments a piece of advice about learning that I find a little off putting. Its regarding learning from reading books. A lot of the advice I see is that "Most books are outdated because the industry is ever changing", "Books have to much techy jargon", or "Just watch tutorials it quicker". I would like to argue that reading books help you to digest ideas beyond an abstract level, help you form strong opinions, ( Which trust me you will need, imposter syndrome gets real.) and provide you with a more lengthy context of why things are the way they are that you cant always get with a video tutorial that are designed to teach concepts quickly. Sometimes just like with the English language we have "big words" that help us explain ideas more concisely. Techy jargon is needed so you don't speak in definitions. For example you can say, "Having the ability to know how others are feeling can help you with customer service" or you can say "Having empathy can help you with customer service". Also you have to understand that tech is in the business of solving problems which means if there are any big changes in the way something is done its making something easier to do and if not the new way isn't worth it. So reading outdated material is actually pretty fun to know how stupid things use to be and helps with having talking points with older Devs. If you haven't had the privilege a formal education and are self-motivated like me you want to make sure that you are not cheating yourself from having a quality learning experience. So with all that being said here are my top 3 books that I feel has help me become a better JS developer, I put them in the order that I thought was best to read them.
1. You Don't Know JS :Series
by Kyle Simpson
The original series of books was kind of a response to Douglas Crockford "JavaScript, The Good parts". If you read the O.G books you kind of got a feeling, that he thought if you think JavaScript has bad parts its because you don't know it. Some JS developers will never know the struggle of life before es6. JavaScript still has its quirks but this book will definitely help you with the weirder parts of JavaScript. If you want to learn how JS works behind the scenes and get a deeper understanding of the language these books will get you right and up to date, its updated often.
2. Maintainable JavaScript
by Nicholas C. Zakas
Probably my favorite book on JavaScript. It is an older book but this book has help me to be more mindful of how my code looks and works overtime. This book will help with having cleaner JavaScript and being a better team member for anyone you work with.
3. JavaScript Enlightenment
by Cody Lindley
This is another oldie but goodie, this book is about working with JavaScript Objects. I would suggest reading Kyle Simpson's "You Don't Know JS: this & object prototypes", first so that you know some of the more modern ways of dealing with objects with the es6 and beyond syntax. JavaScript is all about objects and have some unique ways with dealing with them. Read this book and JavaScript is so much easier to understand.
So that is my suggested reading for becoming a well read JavaScript master, which is like one of my ultimate goals in life.
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