Pro JavaScript Design Patterns
by
Ross Harmes, Dustin Diaz
Apress
1 edition
December 2007
269 pages
Reviewed by Jeanne Boyarsky, April 2008
(9 of 10)
"Pro JavaScript Design Pattens" is a useful read regardless of whether you have a JavaScript or server side language background. An advanced topic that appeals to such varied audiences is tough to do, but the authors succeed admirably. In fact, I can't do such a job, so read the chapter that applies...
JavaScript developers:
The book covers how to write good clean object oriented code in JavaScript. It introduces concepts that are not present in JavaScript along with how to simulate them. The sections on when to use a given pattern are well written.
Server side language developers:
The book covers how to implement in JavaScript the design patterns we are accustomed to. Before getting to this, there are several chapters on JavaScript idioms which are very useful. There were also a couple patterns that a server side developer might not have encountered because the server side is not so memory constrained.
Everyone:
The book also covers tradeoffs of using the patterns. I appreciated where they mention the slight performance hit and how to check/profile if it is a problem for you. All patterns were described clearly and succinctly. There were some real examples as well. At times, it is a bit code heavy -- one example had 1.5 pages of implementation details that had nothing to do with the topic at end. Overall, I think the book was great. If you have a significant amount of JavaScript code, the concepts in this book are critical.
(9 of 10)
