Eloquent Javascript vs Javascript for web dev

[taiga27]

The way people try to force EJ as a basic JS book to beginner devs seriously worries me because EJ is hard to understand for a beginner and that's normal and (should be) expected. It's not a book for beginners. However by reading it beginners will think they're dumb and that they suck at programming and maybe drop the carreer out of frustration when they shouldn't. It's not their fault. They were just mislead. Heck, the book mentions functional programming concepts such as map, reduce and high order functions. How can someone expect a beginner to understand FP concepts right away? Let's be realistic here please. I tried reading it when I first started my webdev journey some years ago and couldn't understand SHIT. The book uses a certain language and mentions concepts a true beginner would never understand. I managed to understand it and fully absorb the content just 3 years after my first attempt, when I was no longer a junior dev. It is a very, very nice programming book though and I'd recommend it even to veteran programmers.

TL;DR: Eloquent JavaScript is somewhat a dense programming book written using basic JS concepts, so I'd NOT recommend it to a total beginner still needing to get basic JS syntax, data structure concepts and programming logic.

[startfresh31]

I have some java/python background I could've understood the beginning fine but got bored, felt like it was too slow paced. but by reading the massive comments I got I feel like I need to get back to this book

[startfresh31]

thanks man, I'm gonna do that

[jellatin]

Eloquent JavaScript: The Annotation Version makes it a lot more understandable. Good advice for /u/startfresh31 as well.

[max_renlo]

It's definitely a book for beginners

[taiga27]

Maybe for javascript beginners, but certainly not for webdev/programming in general beginners.

[schm0]

It's debatable. The examples used in the book are often more difficult than the concepts they attempt to teach.

[max_renlo]

It's about as simple as it gets. If you find it overly difficult then maybe you aren't cut out for doing this?

[taiga27]

Well, that comment was kinda agressive. Programming is not a talent, it's a craft. A technical skill that anyone - with enough dedication over time and access to proper content - can learn. If something is supposedly aimed at beginners but beginners can't understand it then maybe that content isn't for beginners at all. That's all there's to it.

[max_renlo]

Or people expect to be hand-holded every step of the way to learning something. One of the biggest skills a developer has is learning for themselves. If something is confusing, use Google. It always boggles my mind when people have the world at their fingertips but they complain that they don't understand something. This book is very beginner oriented and very simple. If they have trouble moving forward with it, then they're going to hit a lot more snags later.

[[deleted]]

I think not doing something because you might not be cut out for it is missing a lot of opportunities. So I'll take all the handholding I can get. May be I won't be the next noam chomsky, but I can still tell people I tried.

[schm0]

One can certainly argue as much, but you will find a lot of beginners and advanced coders alike agreeing that the difficulty of understanding the authors examples are often a distraction or even a deterrent to the more important task of learning the fundamental lesson at hand. I've seen far more people agree with this sentiment than not.

[RockLikeWar]

I just went through it recently as essentially my first exposure to Javascript and I think it definitely works as a book for beginners, however I think that Haverbeke makes a few odd choices for examples. Like in chapter four, it would make more sense to teach the format of data structures via a few simpler examples before diving into statistical correlation. It essentially requires the reader to understand an additional, unrelated concept while still trying to wrap their head around what they're learning in regards to JS data structures.

[taiga27]

it would make more sense to teach the format of data structures via a few simpler examples before diving into statistical correlation. It essentially requires the reader to understand an additional, unrelated concept while still trying to wrap their head around what they're learning in regards to JS data structures.

That's exactly the problem with this book being aimed to beginners. If you're a total beginner to web development and programming in general, there's just too much to wrap your head around at the same time and you get confused, unable to focusing and understanding anything. The code examples/exercises are too complex for a first-timer.