mf2 reviewed Modern JavaScript for the Impatient by Cay Horstmann
None
3 stars
While this is a sufficient introduction to JavaScript for C(++) programmers, this book falls short on a couple of things.
1. There are no solutions to the exercises. Of course if you study the material thoroughly, refer to other sources etc. you can solve all of them, but this takes a lot of time and therefore is hardly for the "impatient", as the title promises. Even worse is that the text sometimes refers to an exercise, but without the solution you have no choice but to skip this part, if you have as little time as the author suspects.
2. While the material is well presented and well explained (I had almost never the need to refer to other sources for understanding), the book is not very engaging. This is an issue in a lot of programming books, where the material is presented like in an encyclopedia, without building any …
While this is a sufficient introduction to JavaScript for C(++) programmers, this book falls short on a couple of things.
1. There are no solutions to the exercises. Of course if you study the material thoroughly, refer to other sources etc. you can solve all of them, but this takes a lot of time and therefore is hardly for the "impatient", as the title promises. Even worse is that the text sometimes refers to an exercise, but without the solution you have no choice but to skip this part, if you have as little time as the author suspects.
2. While the material is well presented and well explained (I had almost never the need to refer to other sources for understanding), the book is not very engaging. This is an issue in a lot of programming books, where the material is presented like in an encyclopedia, without building any motivation as a reader to go forward. Good programming books have something in it so that you stick with them, e.g. a project to build while you read, which is finished at the end of the book.
3. I could have really done without the Alice illustrations. I kept forgetting which symbol meant which, and using the picture of a kitten for an advanced topic is counterintuitive (at least that is how I experienced it). Putting the words "beginner/intermediate/advanced/pro" in the margin would have served the same purpose, but with much less headache.
In conclusion this book is so-so, but it is much better than anything about modern JavaScript that I found online, and any other JavaScript book I know of. Therefore I would still recommend it.
