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Srebalaji Thirumalai
Srebalaji Thirumalai

Posted on • Originally published at devlists.now.sh

Top JavaScript books to level up your game in JavaScript

Hey Devs

Learning JavaScript in-depth is hard and these books will help your life easier to understand the weird parts of the language.

You don't know JS

You can't be a JS dev without reading this book. This book is a masterpiece that explains JS in very depth. The second edition of the book is work-in-progress but you can still read the first edition that will always be the goto guide. This is one of the highly recommended books for JS devs

Eloquent JavaScript

If you are starting with JS or if you want to learn in-depth JS then this book is the right resource. Unlike some programming books, this book contains a lot of practice programs that you can use it in your real-life projects too. And in the latest version, the author has also updated for the new features of JS and he has also shown how to write clean and simple code in JS.

JavaScript: the good parts

Written by one of the JS experts, this book explains genuinely elegant parts of JS. Reading this book you will understand that JS is not like other languages and understanding the good parts of JS will help you to write better code. And of course with learning the good parts you will learn the bad parts too :P

JavaScript design patterns

Exploring design patterns in any language is always exciting. Learning to implement some important design patterns in JS helps you to learn about the language more and write reusable code in your application. This book covers some advanced concepts in JS in implementing design patterns. So this book definitely helps in writing clean, readable and scalable code in JS

High Performance Browser Networking

Performance is a feature. This book provides a hands-on overview of what every web developer needs to know about the various types of networks (WiFi, 3G/4G), transport protocols (UDP, TCP, and TLS), application protocols (HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2), and APIs available in the browser (XHR, WebSocket, WebRTC, and more) to deliver the best—fast, reliable, and resilient—user experience.

Functional Programming in JavaScript

This book teaches JavaScript developers functional techniques that will improve extensibility, modularity, reusability, testability, and performance. Through concrete examples and jargon-free explanations, this book teaches you how to apply functional programming to real-life development tasks

Composing Software

This book talks about composition and why it is the essence of the software. And explains that all software design is composition: the act of breaking complex problems down into smaller problems and composing those solutions. Most developers have a limited understanding of compositional techniques. The composition will definitely change your perspective towards writing software.

That's it :)

Thank you for reading :) :)

Top comments (11)

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matveyclark profile image
Matthew Clark

Thanks for this - I think books are the only way to take your knowledge past the basics, much more active learning than following videos/courses. Great list, I’m going to start working through them 🧐

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srebalaji profile image
Srebalaji Thirumalai

Awesome Matthew :)

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madza profile image
Madza • Edited

For online resources I would recommend javascript.info/

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stereoplegic profile image
Mike Bybee • Edited

There's also Light Functional JavaScript by Kyle Simpson (same author as YDKJS), and I believe he's working on another, more in-depth book on functional JS.

@thegoodsheppard just saw your comment after I wrote this.

Simpson is the gold standard in technical instruction authors IMO, as he just breaks down everything so well for all experience levels. Everyone else sort of feels like a letdown after reading his work.

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xavierbrinonecs profile image
Xavier Brinon

Ahah

Everyone else
...that you know ;)

Without going so far, let's add Will Sentence: Excellent teacher and great energy in his FrontEndMasters classes.
Axel is also top notch: exploringjs.com/deep-js/ is his new book.

mostly-adequate.gitbooks.io/mostly... is also good FP with JS.

We can add sandimetz.com/99bottles to the collection

eloquentjavascript.net/ eloquent JS is free to browse btw.

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thegoodsheppard profile image
Greg Sheppard

Thanks Mike!—That is definitely a book I was leaning towards but didn't want to prime the response.

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sunilvijay profile image
Sunil Vijay

Thanks for the breakdown of these books Srebalaji. That was crystal clear. My favourite is You don't know JS 😇. Also would like it give a takeaway for your connection those who read this article.
A GUI for JS Projects : guijs.dev/

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srebalaji profile image
Srebalaji Thirumalai

GUI for JS is new for me. Will try that out

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champernet profile image
Timur Iskakov

Awesome compilation, thanks!

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Divyesh Parmar

I was just looking for something related to performance on web thank you so much for suggesting.

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thegoodsheppard profile image
Greg Sheppard

I have been wanting to read a FP w/JS book and there are quite a few to choose from. Why is Luis Atencio's book your recommendation? Thanks!