Sitepoint books

JavaScript
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I already own all of sitepoints books on JavaScript, so what would be the best order to read sitepoints books on JavaScript in?

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Hi Adrian_Hoyle welcome to the forum

That is a question only you can bast answer.

True, book titles that have “Introduction”, “Beginning” etc in them are a good clue, but there is a better way.

AFAIK all SitePoint books have a Preface, and in the Preface there is “Who Should Read This Book” and “What’s in This Book”.

For example JQUERY: NOVICE TO NINJA has

You should already have intermediate to advanced HTML and CSS skills, as jQuery uses CSS-style selectors to zero in on page elements. Some rudimentary programming knowledge will be helpful to have, as jQuery - despite all its clever abstractions - is still based on JavaScript

In other words, if you don’t have “rudimentary programming knowledge” the book might be a bit of a chore for you and it would likely be better for you to put the book aside until you do have “rudimentary programming knowledge”

Also there are different “types” of books,

  • educational: eg. theoretical concepts
  • instructional: eg. how to do this tutorial
  • reference: eg. documentation

IMHO it is a good idea to keep the reference type book handy for when you want to find something specific about something quickly.

Tutorials are good in that they walk you through a process, but the “creations” are usually an example of something particular and cover what is needed for that “creation”.

The educational books are a good place to start, but some find them a bit “dry”.

My usual approach when learning a new language is

  • I give a quick skim through the reference to get an overview of “what’s there” but don’t worry about trying to understand much of it.
  • I read the educational, skimming over anything I don’t think I’d be that interested in learning about right away but reading more carefully anything I think I would be interested in knowing.
  • work my way though a tutorial or more to get some “hands on” experience and test myself to see if I have the knowledge needed.
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I would start with Simply JavaScript, Jumpstart JavaScript, and then take in The Art and Science of JavaScript, and JavaScript Novice to Ninja.

The Tips tricks and hacks book I wouldn’t take all that seriously. Sometimes it’s handy to know those tricks, but better to know how to do thinks without those hacks.

Then with that good grounding under you, you can move on to jQuery, Ajax, ECMAScript 2015, Git, Node, Full Stack, and Angular books in that order.

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