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| Learning JavaScript Design Patterns |
Since I started re-learning JavaScript after an absence of 7
or 8 years, I've found all sorts of great free resources online and purchased a
ton of great books (JavaScript: The Good Parts, Maintainable JavaScript,
Secrets of the JavaScript Ninjas (MEAP), JavaScript Web Applications, and Professional JavaScriptfor Web Developers); I've read two of them so far. This new book, Learning JavaScript Patterns by Addy Osmani, was released both freely via Creative Commons on the internet
and through O’Reilly, and I decided to add it to my stack. (Full disclosure: I got the ebook for free
from O’Reilly).
I found much of the book helpful, but it suffers from being
uneven and unfocused. There are 14
chapters in the book but 80% of the content is in chapters 9 through 13. The first 8 chapters and introductory,
repetitive, and short. It would have
been better to have a single 10 or 15 page introduction than eight 2 page
chapters. Even beginners could safely
skip to chapter 9.
Unlike other Pattern books that are systematically
organized, it is hard to understand the structure of the book. In the introductory chapters a table is given
of the patterns described in the rest of the book, but it doesn't include page
references. Sometimes patterns are
mentioned before they are actually described. The GOF patterns described rely,
as you would expect, on Design Patterns by Gamma et al., but I don’t think the
author described well how (or if) these patterns fit into JavaScript other than
showing an implementation. The chapter
on User Interface patterns was good, heavily relies on Martin Fowler’s work,
but seemed out of place where it was located.
The jQuery Plug-in Design Patterns chapter, was excellent and new, at
least, to me.
The best chapter in the book is chapter 12, “Design Patterns
in jQuery.” It describes patterns by
showing them in use in jQuery, and providing commentary on the actual
source. If the entire book had been
organized like chapter 12, this would be a five star review.
One nice thing about the book is the many references
included. Almost everything was backed
up by at least one, sometimes several, blog posts or articles by experts.
The eBook originally had many errors in its diagrams, but
O’Reilly has updated it recently, and most of the problems seem to be
fixed. I was disappointed with the
kindle version which I read on my iPod; I had to switch to the PDF at times to
understand the book. Usually O’Reilly
creates excellently formatted eBooks, so that was surprising.
There was a lot of good in this book, especially in the
later chapters, but I would have a hard time recommending it for purchase, when
the content is available online in a searchable form for free.
Product Information:
- O'Reilly: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920025832.do
- Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Learning-JavaScript-Design-Patterns-ebook/dp/B008VJSPZE
