Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > comp.lang.javascript > #31452

Re: n00b considering Java Script

Show key headers only | View raw

WaltS wrote:
^^^^^
This is Usenet.  Your “From” header field value should contain your *real* 
name.

> On 09/25/2016 10:09 AM, Marek Novotny wrote:
>> I know absolutely NOTHING about Java Script. If I wanted to get started
>> learning on some n00b basic level would there be a book or online course
>> you'd recommend?
>>
> 
> 
> I've started learning JavaScript using Beginning JavaScript 5th Edition,
> several times.
> 
> <http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118903331.html>

<http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/31/11189033/1118903331-15.pdf>

Page 1:

| 1 Introduction to JavaScript and the Web
| 
| […]
| JavaScript is an interpreted language rather than a compiled language. 

Wrong.

| What is meant by the terms “interpreted” and “compiled”?
| Well, to let you in on a secret, your computer doesn’t really understand 
| JavaScript at all. It needs something to interpret the JavaScript code and
| convert it into something that it understands; hence it is an interpreted
| language. Computers understand only machine code, which is essentially a 
| string of binary numbers (that is, a string of zeros and ones). As the
| browser goes through the JavaScript, it passes it to a special program
| called an interpreter, which converts the JavaScript to the machine
| code your computer understands. 

No, it does not.  Instead, source code is passed to a software component 
called a script engine, by which it is compiled (just-in-time) to bytecode 
to be executed by a platform-independent virtual machine (e.g. by Mozilla 
SpiderMonkey) or to machine-specific code (e.g., by Google V8).

Page 2:

| What is JavaScript?
| […]
| In 1997, JavaScript was standardized by Ecma International, a membership‐
| based non‐profit organization, and renamed to ECMAScript.

Wrong.  “ECMAScript is based on several originating technologies, the most 
well-known being JavaScript (Netscape) and JScript (Microsoft).”  (This true 
sentence can be found in *every* Edition of the ECMAScript Language 
Specification.)

| JavaScript support among today’s browsers is certainly more unifi ed than
| it has ever been, but as you see in future chapters, developers still have
| to cope with older, and in many cases non‐standard, JavaScript
| implementations. 

Wrong.  Those programming languages are not “JavaScript implementations”, 
but _ECMAScript_ implementations, and *the standard allows conforming 
implementations extensions to the language*:

‘2 Conformance

A conforming implementation of ECMAScript may provide additional types, 
values, objects, properties, and functions beyond those described in this 
specification. In particular, a conforming implementation of ECMAScript may 
provide properties not described in this specification, and values for those 
properties, for objects that are described in this specification.

A conforming implementation of ECMAScript may support program and regular 
expression syntax not described in this specification. In particular, a 
conforming implementation of ECMAScript may support program syntax that 
makes use of the “future reserved words” listed in subclause 11.6.2.2 of 
this specification.’

(to be found in *every* Edition of the ECMAScript Language Specification)

Page 3:

| JavaScript and the Web
| 
| […]
| The organization that sets the standards for web pages is the World Wide
| Web Consortium (W3C). It not only sets standards for HTML and CSS, but
| also for how JavaScript interacts with web pages inside a web browser. 

Utter nonsense.  The W3C specifies the Document Object Model (DOM), a 
standard of *language-independent* interfaces for interacting with documents 
written in markup languages like HTML, which are the primary focus of the 
W3C.  ECMAScript implementations like JavaScript, among other programming 
languages, can then be used to access implementations of those interfaces 
and interact with DOM objects.


Those are only the first three pages of that book and they are already full 
of common misconceptions about “JavaScript”.  From that, I doubt that the 
author(s) have the slightest idea what they are talking about.  I strongly 
recommend against reading this book, much less buying it.

The amount of nonsense you will have to unlearn after reading it will be 
greater than what you can learn correctly elsewhere, including this 
newsgroup.  Read its FAQ instead; alas, it is not up-to-date either, but 
still better than this book because the latter was written by 
*professionals* who make a living by using the language(s) every day; not by 
some wannabe author/publishing house who wants to make a quick buck and a 
name for themselves by writing down/publishing hearsay and their purely 
theoretical understanding/misconceptions of the topic.

BTW:

<http://catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#writewell>
<http://catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#idm45835691819312>

-- 
PointedEars
FAQ: <http://PointedEars.de/faq> | SVN: <http://PointedEars.de/wsvn/>
Twitter: @PointedEars2 | ES Matrix: <http://PointedEars.de/es-matrix>
Please do not cc me. / Bitte keine Kopien per E-Mail. 

Back to comp.lang.javascript | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread

Thread

n00b considering Java Script Marek Novotny <marek.novotny@marspolar.com> - 2016-09-25 14:09 +0000
  Re: n00b considering Java Script WaltS <thalionusa@REMOVEaim.com> - 2016-09-25 11:22 -0400
    Re: n00b considering Java Script Marek Novotny <marek.novotny@marspolar.com> - 2016-09-25 16:12 +0000
      Re: n00b considering Java Script WaltS <thalionusa@REMOVEaim.com> - 2016-09-25 12:33 -0400
    Re: n00b considering Java Script Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2016-09-25 18:23 +0200
      Re: n00b considering Java Script WaltS <thalionusa@REMOVEaim.com> - 2016-09-25 12:32 -0400
        Re: n00b considering Java Script Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2016-09-25 19:36 +0100
          Re: n00b considering Java Script WaltS <thalionusa@REMOVEaim.com> - 2016-09-25 16:25 -0400
        Re: n00b considering Java Script Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2016-09-25 21:23 +0200
          Re: n00b considering Java Script John Harris <niam@jghnorth.org.uk.invalid> - 2016-09-26 10:28 +0100
      Re: n00b considering Java Script John Harris <niam@jghnorth.org.uk.invalid> - 2016-09-26 10:22 +0100
      Re: n00b considering Java Script Andreas Bergmaier <andber93@web.de> - 2016-09-26 23:10 +0200
        Re: n00b considering Java Script Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2016-09-27 06:27 +0200
          Re: n00b considering Java Script Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2016-09-27 06:43 +0200
  Re: n00b considering Java Script Gregor Kofler <usenet@gregorkofler.com> - 2016-09-25 23:57 +0200
  Re: n00b considering Java Script Scott Sauyet <scott@sauyet.com> - 2016-09-25 22:47 +0000
    Re: n00b considering Java Script Marek Novotny <marek.novotny@marspolar.com> - 2016-09-26 01:00 +0000
    Re: n00b considering Java Script Andreas Bergmaier <andber93@web.de> - 2016-09-26 23:22 +0200
      Re: n00b considering Java Script Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2016-09-27 08:18 +0200
        Re: n00b considering Java Script John Harris <niam@jghnorth.org.uk.invalid> - 2016-09-27 19:12 +0100
      Re: n00b considering Java Script Scott Sauyet <scott@sauyet.com> - 2016-09-30 03:14 +0000

csiph-web