(Part 2) Top products from r/javascript

Head First HTML5 Programming is a very visual book with a ton of review and quizzing and uses practical examples to teach Javascript, it's a little dated at this point, but a really great resource for book learners .

The Odin Project spends a lot of time in the beginning on teaching helpful tooling that a lot of other learning resources leave out, like git, developer tools, debugging and testing, it takes a little while to get to the Javascript part, but everything before that ends up being very useful .

Brad Traversy's Modern Javascript from the beginning Udemy course is a fantastic and thorough introduction to Javascript . Javascript has seen a lot of cool updates in the past few years, and this is one of the only courses that starts out with the "modern" approach, so you don't end up having to relearn a bunch of things . A great course for video learners .

Practical Javascript,A great course that teaches entry level javascript with practical examples that build on top of each other to form a full project . The paid subscription is a fantastic course that goes into a lot of important subjects often skipped in other courses, but can at times be very boring .

Other resources you're likely to be referred to that I somewhat disagree with

Free Code Camp & Codecademy, if you were instead learning to draw, the teaching methods of these courses would be the equivalent of tracing pictures you liked . Free Code Camp has a really great and helpful community built around it though .

You don't know Javascript & Eloquent Javascript really are some great books and deserve their praise, they're just not the friendliest introductions to Javascript if it's you don't already have some knowledge of Javascript or other programming languages .

Javascript & jQuery by Jon Ducket, this book is fine, but I just don't feel it's as good of an introduction as any of The Head First books, while still being just as dated. It is a lot more comprehensive though, but it doesn't build to a project, use as practical of examples or do as much hand holding .

This is kind of a side-answer, but it looks like you are just compiling a list of things that are super popular at the moment.

> React.js with Flux seems more hot than all other frameworks

What concerns me is that you seem to not be concerned with what is the best framework for your project(s), but rather what is "hot".

For a long-term career I would recommend focusing on improving your understanding of concepts and theory that these ever-changing tools are built on rather than trying to chase what people think is cool.

The people who spent time learning JavaScript rather than simply "mastering" jQuery were in a significantly better position when client-side frameworks came out because they knew the underlying concepts.

If you haven't mastered these things yet, I think they have more value than most of the list of specific tools I see listed:

• Eloquent JavaScript & JavaScript: The Good Parts - Master the ins & outs of the language
  
• Understand common design patterns - New frameworks are going to be building with these components, what better way to have a jump on the "next big thing" than by understanding the blocks that it's built with?
  
• Functional Programming - React (and to a lesser extent Angular) are increasingly utilizing this paradigm and it is a jumping off point for more advanced techniques like Reactive Programming that lets you leverage an incredible amount of power especially in the big data space.

Read this book.

Then, after reading the whole thing cover to cover, start working on your proposal.

From some of the questions you're asking about jQuery integrating with a framework, it's clear that some more basic concepts of how to isolate legacy code and migrate piece-by-piece would be very helpful.

Also, just a suggestion, but I'd highly recommend doing the new development in TypeScript. It'll compile to play nice with any other code you might need it to, but will offer you some awesome tooling that will help in maintaining your project moving forward.

Everyone here is going to give you a bunch of 30-days or head-first books - many of which will have the ostensible impremateur of big names like Crockford and Resig.

Let me be the first to tell you to basically ignore this crap.

Read the standard, get a good reference on browser differences, then focus on real programming books that are not language specific. That's the way to rise above making jQuery plugins and "HTML5 Game Demos" of Atari 2600 games.

The standard:

http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-262.htm

Good reference on browser differences:

http://www.quirksmode.org/compatibility.html

The kinds of books you should be reading (notice the used prices please):

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Algorithms-CD-Rom-Thomas-Cormen/dp/0072970545/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313160060&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Programming-Volumes-1-4A-Boxed/dp/0321751043/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313160086&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Structure-Interpretation-Computer-Programs-Second/dp/0070004846/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313160117&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Design-Patterns-Elements-Reusable-Object-Oriented/dp/0201633612/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313160130&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Refactoring-Improving-Design-Existing-Code/dp/0201485672/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313160138&sr=8-1

I'd throw in a rickroll if I could.

A deep knowledge of CSS will help. If Javascript is your hammer, CSS is your screwdriver; the two are very related in most cases (sure there are exceptions, like node servers, but they're not common.)

Like JS, the best way to learn CSS is the standard.

http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/

Happy hunting.

>What are some good guides/practices to unit testing?

Test Driven Development: By Example is a good book to get started with

>Say I have an app with dozens of functions, how do I choose which functions to write tests for, and are there preferred style guides for these tests?

Ideally, you would test them all and you would want to write unit tests and integration tests for them.

>If it helps I want to begin by testing the front end code, whether it's generated with a framework like React or more bespoke using template strings. How do you conduct "recon" on your code to pick the targets to write tests for first, and how do you choose your testing framework?

I've never used bespoke so I can't comment on it but for React I'd recommend jestand enzyme. Jest is a testing framework that was created by Facebook (the creators of React). It's not specifically designed for React but it works great with it. Enzyme is a library made by Airbnb specifically for testing React components. Enzyme is designed to work along side Jest.

>I know you need as much coverage as possible but since you gotta start somewhere, how do you pick the starting point in your code?

The most critical part of your application

IMO the best resource to learn the TDD mindset is still Kent Beck's TDD by Example.

I also like Joe Rainsberger's TDD Course.

I wrote a blog post with the 3 books about software design (very much related to TDD, IMO) I recommend the most. Hope it is helpful.

IBM?

Man, going from angular to dojo is going to be terrible.

Going from nothing to dojo this book was helpful. I can't say I came across any screencasts during my time with dojo. The docs and the getting started demos are probably the best help you are going to find on the net.

I honestly learned the most by reading the dojo and dijit source. I might be weird though.

Good luck!

Just to add onto the awesome list already given, A smarter way to learn JavaScript is also great 👍🏾

> Recently I have begun experimenting with Shiny, Bokeh, and Dash (which are interactive frameworks in R and Python for creating dashboards and displaying data interactively), and I have found most of these packages are actually just wrappers for Javascript libraries.

Actually Shiny and Bokeh are wrappers for D3.js. I don't know anything about Dash, though.

D3 is the gold standard for data visualisation in JavaScript. There is a really good book, Data Visualisation with Python and JavaScript, by Kyran Dale on O'Reilly. It's designed for devs who know a little of either Python or JavaScript, and the first few chapters go over the basics of both, comparing one to the other. Then it goes through a Python web scraping, data cleaning, web back end technology stack, then turns the data you scraped into something beautiful and interactive with D3.

Or if you'd rather just deep dive into D3, I can recommend Interactive Data Visualisation for the Web by Scott Murray, also on O'Reilly. Despite the title, the book doesn't spend long discussing web development, just the minimum HTML you need to make your D3 projects display. The book is an expanded tutorial on D3, from the very basics to some of the really far-out features.

Either one of these books will give you exactly what you're looking for, depending how much time you'd want to spend with Python before getting into visualisation. And by the way, D3 can also do maps.

I strongly recommend reading this book. It will teach you JS extremely well along with the relationship to the DOM (html I guess). I struggled too yearrrs ago and everything came together because of this book:

http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-The-Complete-Reference-Edition/dp/0071741208/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1414129241&sr=8-2&keywords=javascript+reference

Do not give up! The frontend development world is extremely Javascript heavy now that it's a super valuable language to learn.

This is a really big question, and not really specific to javascript. Architecting large applications, in my opinion, is kind of an art form. You can learn strategies by reading, but you're not going to get good at it without years of experience. Ideally you learn this stuff while working alongside strong senior developers who know what they're doing.

Read Design Patterns, if you haven't. I'd also recommend Javascript Alongé, but I'm a functional programming crazy.

Build something in a way that feels right, then evaluate what worked and what didn't. Which parts sucked to modify when requirements or assumptions changed? Which parts were hard to understand a month later?

In general, I have a few guidelines:

1. Definitely use some sort of module system (AMD, or ES6 modules) to aid in encapsulation and prevent global pollution
   
2. Keep similar code together and differing code apart.
   
3. Keep modules small, and single purpose
   
4. Prefer composition over inheritence
   
5. If you're doing web stuff, don't be afraid to keep the html, css, and js for specific pieces of UI together. Don't fall into the trap of conflating technology with concerns.

If you want to know how interpreters/compilers work:

• http://www.craftinginterpreters.com
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Compilers-Principles-Techniques-Tools-2nd/dp/0321486811
  
  
• https://github.com/jamiebuilds/the-super-tiny-compiler
  
  
• https://ruslanspivak.com/lsbasi-part1/
  
  Bonus: http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2011/03/19/pratt-parsers-expression-parsing-made-easy/
  
  Edit: have fun!

Hey! I actually majored in Philosophy (Wittgenstein is my homie)!

I've got about 3 years of javascript career experience under my belt, tho this is all web-development centered... so I'm not able to give you any suggestions outside of web-development or native applications. Honestly, It's going to be a bit of a struggle finding data-viz javascript tutorials that are totally outside of those worlds tho.

Anyways... If you arn't against web dev, by far the most popular JS data visualisation library is D3 ( https://d3js.org/ ). It has a steep learning curve, but once you've mastered it you're really able to do quite a lot.

As far as tutorials, I'd suggest this ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1491921285/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl ). But whatever tutorial you end up following for D3, just be sure it's for version 4.X.

i just noticed Lauriat "Advanced ajax" got excellent reviews, will check out

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0131350641/

If you're already an experienced programmer, then I recommend The C++ Programming Language by Bjarne Stroustrup. Stroustrup is the guy who created the language, so this book is the most comprehensive and most authoritative you'll find short of reading the language standard itself.

Or, if C++ feels just a bit too foreign, you could also read Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++, which is also by Stroustrup, but was written to be a college text. It takes its time a little more, and it includes drills and exercises... essentially self-study homework problems to help you get familiar with using the language well.

Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code

Clean Code

The Clean Coder

I'm not a huge fan of Haskell. It's big features like laziness, "no side effects" (performUnsafeIO is everywhere), and (to a lesser extent) immutable everything are generally at odds with the real world. If you are willing to work through those, it makes fast code.

SML with mlton or similar is a better flagship for lambda calculus languages. Like all GC'd languages, it loses by a little to the low-level C ones in the general case. Compared to other GC languages, it's very competitive.

https://www.amazon.com/Implementation-Functional-Programming-Prentice-hall-International/dp/013453333X

Amos Haviv is releasing the second edition of MEAN Web Development on July 6th. I have the first edition, and it was terrific at teaching the basics plus CRUD modules, login/authentication, and Socket.IO. The first edition used Angular 1, and the second edition uses Angular 2. I'm assuming it will contain all of the same elements as the first edition, just using Angular 2 instead. Highly recommend!

Amazon

EDIT: This book doesn't have an example with different user roles, but it wouldn't be difficult to modify the project you make to include them.

The C Programming Language is a good one too. Although it's specific to learning C, reading through it and doing all the exercises is something every programmer should do at least once.

Also, Code Complete 2.

I'd like to add one: Test-Driven JavaScript Development

I would recommend looking into Domain Driven Design (DDD). A book a lot of people recommend is Domain Driven Design by Eric Evans but sometimes it's hard to translate the examples in the book to something you can apply in JavaScript. However you can probably find articles about DDD in JavaScript if you google for it.

There's more than a single design pattern for applications. Recommended reading: https://www.amazon.com/Design-Patterns-Elements-Reusable-Object-Oriented-ebook/dp/B000SEIBB8

Javascript Allonge

Functional Javascript

I think its called HTML5 but there is a big emphasis on javascript
https://www.amazon.com/Head-First-HTML5-Programming-JavaScript/dp/1449390544

edit: theres actually one just for javascript but i've never read that one

https://www.amazon.de/Working-Effectively-Legacy-Robert-Martin/dp/0131177052?ie=UTF8&tag=googdemozdesk-21&hvadid=323934261977&hvpos=1t1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10757532144450521743&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9072483&hvtargid=dsa-19959388920&ref=pd_sl_35q8ibnq4w_e&language=en_GB

https://www.amazon.com/Smarter-Way-Learn-JavaScript-technology-ebook/dp/B00H1W9I6C/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1542329199&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=a+smarter+way+to+learn+javascript&psc=1

FFS... just stop. This is NOT a Mediator Pattern

Three articles that are either partially or completely wrong in three days? Just. Stop. Go get this book... read it... then try again.

You can't just "invent" patterns and name them after existing patterns because you named one of your objects "mediator".

A Mediator Pattern in JS explained by someone who knows what he's talking about