Eloquent JavaScript
Marijn Haverbeke
22 people recommended it in 10 threads, 2013–2023.
2 commenters pushed back on it — worth reading the threads.
What people on Hacker News said
Though I've never actually finished the whole thing it does a pretty great job explaining JS to the uninitiated.
"Eloquent Javascript" (http://eloquentjavascript.net/) definitely gets my vote, as it starts with concepts that someone new to programming would need to understand before diving into the specifics of the language.
The examples in Eloquent Javascript need to be studied by the reader to get the most out of that book.
Suffice to say once I hit that section I went back to codeacademy finished the course (which never brought them up and I'm not sure if that's good or bad) now I'm back in Eloquent Javascript...it get's really hard really fast.
I think this is the best beginners book for sure. In case anyone is wondering, it doesn't teach ES6, but it does teach veey grounded Javascript ideas and it won't be difficult to catch up with the latest changes to JS after learning from this book. It's also free!
You build 5 projects through the book - a programming language, paint program, a dom game and a skill sharing website using node js.
Where it comes up
- Ask HN: Best current book to learn JavaScript? 2017 · 8 recommendations
- Ask HN: Best books to learn web development? 2023 · 4 recommendations
- Ask HN: Books that teach programming by building a series of small projects? 2023 · 3 recommendations
- Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click? 2022 · 1 recommendation
- Computer Science textbooks that are freely available online 2020 · 1 recommendation
- Ask HN: What are some books where the reader learns by building one project? 2017 · 1 recommendation
- The most mentioned books on Stack Overflow 2017 · 1 recommendation
- Ask HN: What are the latest and greatest books on your favorite language? 2015 · 1 recommendation
- Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days? 2015 · 1 recommendation
- Ask HN: What book are you reading? 2013 · 1 recommendation