Pro JavaScript Design Patterns by Ross Harmes
The book started really nice, at a beginner to medium level with which I could not feel neither embarrassed nor overwhelmed. The first chapter was about the expressiveness of Javascript and how different styles of programming could be employed to achieve the same goals. This part of it I would have liked to see expanded in a book of its own, with code examples and everything.
The second chapter was also interesting, comparing the interface style of programming with the options available inside Javascript as well as giving some real life solutions. Personally, I didn't think the solutions were valid, as writing the interface as comments and trying to enforce the interface inside methods and getters/setters feels cumbersome and "unJavascriptish" to me.
The third chapter, Encapsulation and Information Hiding, described object creation, private, privileged (not protected!) and public members, while the fourth was dedicated to inheritance. All these are great reading for a Javascript programmer, as they might teach one or two new things.
From then on, 13 chapters described various software patterns and their application in Javascript. Alas, since this was the explicit purpose of the book, I can't say I enjoyed that part of the book. It felt like any other rehashing of the original GoF book, only with the syntax changed. Well, maybe not quite so bad, but it lacked a consistency and a touch of the writer's personality that makes books easy to read and to remember.
That being said, the technical part was top notch and the structure of each chapter made it easy to understand everything in them. The software patterns described were: Singleton, Chaining, Factory, Bridge, Composite, Facade, Adapter, Decorator, Flyweight, Proxy, Observer, Command and Chain of Responsibility.
Overall, a nice book for reference, but not one that I would call memorable. An easy read and also an easy browse, since one can pass quickly through the book and still understand what it is all about.
The second chapter was also interesting, comparing the interface style of programming with the options available inside Javascript as well as giving some real life solutions. Personally, I didn't think the solutions were valid, as writing the interface as comments and trying to enforce the interface inside methods and getters/setters feels cumbersome and "unJavascriptish" to me.
The third chapter, Encapsulation and Information Hiding, described object creation, private, privileged (not protected!) and public members, while the fourth was dedicated to inheritance. All these are great reading for a Javascript programmer, as they might teach one or two new things.
From then on, 13 chapters described various software patterns and their application in Javascript. Alas, since this was the explicit purpose of the book, I can't say I enjoyed that part of the book. It felt like any other rehashing of the original GoF book, only with the syntax changed. Well, maybe not quite so bad, but it lacked a consistency and a touch of the writer's personality that makes books easy to read and to remember.
That being said, the technical part was top notch and the structure of each chapter made it easy to understand everything in them. The software patterns described were: Singleton, Chaining, Factory, Bridge, Composite, Facade, Adapter, Decorator, Flyweight, Proxy, Observer, Command and Chain of Responsibility.
Overall, a nice book for reference, but not one that I would call memorable. An easy read and also an easy browse, since one can pass quickly through the book and still understand what it is all about.
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