Review: Javascript, The Good Parts, by Douglas Crockford

I'm convinced  "JavaScript, The Good Parts" is one of the best JavaScript books for JavaScript doubters, especially those coming from a traditional object-oriented language like me. It really addresses whether JavaScript is just a mess (it definitely has messy parts) or whether there is something good in there. I'm convinced that by avoiding some problematic parts of the language, there is a very useful, functional language core that can express some interesting use-patterns.

One of the cool concepts emphasized is that JavaScript has object-inheritance, not class-inheritance. There are no classes. Instead, you can inherit from an object. Something that looks like a class is actually just an object that you essentially make copies of and use in a consistent way.

One of the implications is there are mixin/inheritance patterns that can't be expressed in Java/C++ that you can do in JavaScript. I haven't gotten my head around when they might be the best way to do things, though.

Highly recommended!

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