JavaScript Patterns [Paperback]

Stoyan Stefanov (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 28, 2010

What's the best approach for developing an application with JavaScript? This book helps you answer that question with numerous JavaScript coding patterns and best practices. If you're an experienced developer looking to solve problems related to objects, functions, inheritance, and other language-specific categories, the abstractions and code templates in this guide are ideal -- whether you're writing a client-side, server-side, or desktop application with JavaScript.

Written by JavaScript expert Stoyan Stefanov -- Senior Yahoo! Technical and architect of YSlow 2.0, the web page performance optimization tool -- JavaScript Patterns includes practical advice for implementing each pattern discussed, along with several hands-on examples. You'll also learn about anti-patterns: common programming approaches that cause more problems than they solve.

• Explore useful habits for writing high-quality JavaScript code, such as avoiding globals, using single var declarations, and more
• Learn why literal notation patterns are simpler alternatives to constructor functions
• Discover different ways to define a function in JavaScript
• Create objects that go beyond the basic patterns of using object literals and constructor functions
• Learn the options available for code reuse and inheritance in JavaScript
• Study sample JavaScript approaches to common design patterns such as Singleton, Factory, Decorator, and more
• Examine patterns that apply specifically to the client-side browser environment

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Stoyan Stefanov is a Yahoo! web developer, Zend Certified Engineer, and an author, contributor, and tech reviewer of various O'Reilly books. He speaks regularly about web development topics at conferences and on his blog at www.phpied.com. Stoyan is the creator of the smush.it image optimization tool and architect of Yahoo's performance optimization tool YSlow 2.0.

Product Details

• Paperback: 236 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (September 28, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596806752
• ISBN-13: 978-0596806750
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.5 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,957 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #8 in Books > Computers & Technology > Web Development & Design > Programming > JavaScript
  • #65 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Languages & Tools

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 65 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Hit the sweet spot for me! October 14, 2010

By Anon:

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

It's often difficult to find good intermediate to advanced technical books that help you get over the hump. This is most definitely one of those books, IMO, along with Javascript: The Good Parts by Crockford and High Performance JavaScript by Zakas.

If you're a beginner, even an ambitious beginner, such as an experienced programmer in another language, you don't want to start here. For beginners, I'd recommend Zakas (Javascript for Web Developers) as the most complete introduction to Javascript, the DOM and browser scripting; or Simply JavaScript from Sitepoint for a gentler introduction that emphasizes the separation of structured content (HTML), presentation (CSS) and behavior (scripting the DOM with Javascript).

OTOH, if you're more or less comfortable with core Javascript and the DOM but want to clarify and explore the many idiosyncracies and fine points of JS, this book really hits the sweet spot. The table of contents is available on Amazon or O'Reilly, so I won't recap it - but will mention that Stefanov both chooses his topics and covers and organizes his material very well. This is a precisely and well-written book, and the reader will infer that there must have be a lot of experience, previous history and discussions behind these 200+ pages. I've read the blogs of the majority of his technical reviewers and believe you're in good hands here. I'm really lovin' this book. The only caveat - don't expect a lot on browser scripting. However, I'd be surprised if the somewhat experienced, but non-ninja, Javascript programmer did not significantly take his/her knowledge to a higher level after reading JavaScript Patterns.

* * *

Addendum: I was interrupted by a rush job during my initial reading of this book and after returning to it now and rereading the early chapters and carefully reading several of the later chapters, I'm even more impressed by this book. The heart of the book, when it gets a little more advanced (functions, object creation patterns and code re-use patterns) has proved really valuable.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars At last! A readable, expert book on JavaScript patterns October 24, 2010

By Lars Tackmann

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book is not for the newbie JavaScript programmer (for the complete beginner I suggest JavaScript: The Missing Manual). It assumes some deep knowledge about the language and one is well advised to have read Douglas Crockford's JavaScript: The Good Parts before venturing into this book. Having said that, this book is just simply amazing!. It is very obvious that the author knows his subject, knows how to write and knows what problems people actually have. This is no small feat, as most programming books usually fails in one or more of these areas.

The book covers numerous inheritance and code reuse techniques, including most of the GOF patterns, but does also suggest several novel ways to take advantage (and not hack around) JavaScripts prototypical nature. I especially liked the code "tours", where the author spends considerable time developing a solution step by step, demonstrating pitfalls and side effects while simultaneously anticipating questions the reader might have. These JavaScript vistas has added considerably to my knowledge of the language, and I expect I will comeback to them again in the future (this book can easily take a second and third reading).

In summary, a very elegant written book containing an incredibly amount of knowledge, at a great price. Quite possible the best book on JavaScript in existence - highly recommended.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Really useful book November 3, 2010

By Juan Adalberto Anzaldo Moreno

Format:Paperback

This book is really awesome, from the beginning to the end, the author shows useful tools to improve the javascript programming.

With more than 30 patterns the author goes from basic concepts, such as avoiding globals, using single var declarations, precaching length in loops, following coding conventions, running JSLint, etc., to advanced ones like variable hoisting, select algorithms at runtime, proxy objects, loading strategies, javascript optimization and a lot of more.

What I liked about the book was the way in which the author explains and illustrates the patterns and how well organized the book is written, this book helped me to understand in a better way some javascript techniques with several solutions to a common scenarios.

I recommend this book if you want to write better code, if you want to understand how the libraries are written or if you want to write your own javascript library. It helps a lot to understand the javascript core and the fundamentals and helps also to be more productive taking care of performance and maintenance of javascript code.