Resources about JavaScript and Node.js
ECMAScript 2015 (aka ES6)
- Language Specification by ECMA (June 2015):
- Internationalization API Specification by ECMA (June 2015):
- Free books, readable online:
- “Exploring ES6” by Axel Rauschmayer
- “Setting up ES6” by Axel Rauschmayer (specifically on “how to set up ES6 projects that are compiled to ES5 via Babel 6”; 95% complete at the time of writing)
- “Understanding ECMAScript 6” by Nicholas C. Zakas
- “JavaScript Allongé, the ‘Six’ Edition» by Reginald Braithwaite
- “You Don't Know JS” by Kyle Simpson (book series)
- JS reference at Mozilla Developer Network (probably the best reference out there)
- ES6 compatibility table (very useful: what browsers/runtimes support what versions/features of JS)
- ES6 cheatsheet (a short compilation of the new features, with examples)
- Running JS on the command line (apart from Node.js):
- Mozilla's Spidermonkey: package
libmozjs-24-bin
in both Debian and Ubuntu; invoke binaryjs24
. - Oracle's Nashorn: part of Java 8 JRE; probably package
openjdk-8-jre-headless
; invoke binaryjjs
.
- Mozilla's Spidermonkey: package
Old JavaScript
- Free books, readable online:
- “Speaking JavaScript: An In-Depth Guide for Programmers” by Axel Rauschmayer
- “Eloquent JavaScript” by Marijn Haverbeke
- Non-free books (available in digital and print editions):
- “JavaScript: The Good Parts” by Douglas Crockford: (short book by one of the gurus, highlighting the best features of the language and explaining how to avoid the bad parts of JS)
- “JavaScript: The Definitive Guide” by David Flanagan (comprehensive and very accurate, the best reference for the language and the “Bible” before ES6)
- “Functional Javascript” by Michael Fogus (focuses on one of the strongest points of Javascript, namely the ability to write in a very functional style)
- “ Effective JavaScript: 68 Specific Ways to Harness the Power of JavaScript” by David Herman
- JS in one picture (interactive mindmap with the syntax of the language)
- “The ECMAScript Internationalization API” (introduction by the editor of the first edition)
Node.js
Main documentation: W3C's official Node.js best practices, recommended tools and template projects (public GH repository).
- Official site:
- Interactive guide to
package.json
(what's the syntax, what's the meaning of each section, what possible values it can have) node-inspector
(a very useful package to debug and inspect Node.js applications)- Non-free books by O'Reilly (available for Kindle and in paperback):
- “Web Development with Node and Express: Leveraging the JavaScript Stack” by Ethan Brown (a good, easy-to-follow tutorial about development with Node.js using one of its most popular packages,
express
)
- “Web Development with Node and Express: Leveraging the JavaScript Stack” by Ethan Brown (a good, easy-to-follow tutorial about development with Node.js using one of its most popular packages,
- Commands for Node.js development and debugging (GitHub Gist listing simple commands to run and debug apps and test suites using mocha)
- For testing and sharing PoC's and quick/simple pages/apps, these public services are useful:
npm
Meta
- “Essential JavaScript Links” by Eric Elliott and contributors
- “JS: The Right Way” by BrazilJS and contributors