Developer Reading List: The Must-Have Books for JavaScript

Andrew Binstock, February 12, 2013 The best books for learning the basics, becoming expert, and and writing complete apps in JavaScript
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Introductory Tutorials

Eloquent JavaScript, by Marijn Haverbecke

A quick (less that 200 pages), thorough introduction to what you need to go to get up and running with JavaScript. In depth coverage of the language, in particular. Separate chapters follow on the DOM, the browser model, and the nature of HTTP requests. Highly readable, and the easiest way to go from being a complete noob to knowing your way around the language.

The Book of JavaScript, 2nd Edition, by Dave Thau!

A deeper and somewhat more readable tutorial than the first book, but solely focused on JavaScript and Ajax. At more than 500 pages, it presents a lot more code, and includes reference material for basic Ajax functionality. If JavaScript and Ajax are your entire ambit, this might be the only book you use. However, if you're looking at current tools and applications, this title, which came out in 2007, will leave you a little behind the times. Recommended primarily for its presentation of language features.


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