A showcase of the best 12 free ebooks about Javascript for advanced users
If you have a strong knowledge in programming and want to improve your JavaScript skills or you want a good reference book then this list is for you.
We've put together a list of 12 of our favorite JavaScript free book to help save you time and energy along the way. If you know of other great resources, feel free to share them in the comments.
1. HTML CANVAS DEEP DIVE
By Josh Marinacci
For those who allready know JavaScript basics and wants to learn HTML Canvas.
Canvas is a 2D drawing API recently added to HTML and supported by most browsers (even Internet Explorer 9 beta). Canvas allows you to draw anything you want directly in the web browser without the use of plugins like Flash or Java. With its deceptively simple API, Canvas can revolutionize how we build web applications for all devices, not just desktops.[...]
2. MASTERING NODEJS
By TJ Holowaychuk
Node is an exciting new platform developed by Ryan Dahl, allowing JavaScript developers to create extremely high performance servers by leveraging Google's V8 JavaScript engine, and asynchronous I/O. In Mastering Node we will discover how to write high concurrency web servers, utilizing the CommonJS module system, node's core libraries, third party modules, high level web development and more.
3. JAVASCRIPT GARDEN
By Ivo Wetzel
JavaScript Garden is a growing collection of documentation about the most quirky parts of the JavaScript programming language. It gives advice to avoid common mistakes and subtle bugs, as well as performance issues and bad practices, that non-expert JavaScript programmers may encounter on their endeavours into the depths of the language.
JavaScript Garden does not aim to teach you JavaScript. Former knowledge of the language is strongly recommended in order to understand the topics covered in this guide. In order to learn the basics of the language, please head over to the excellent guide on the Mozilla Developer Network.
4. BUILDING A JAVASCRIPT FRAMEWORK
By Alex Young
This book is a guide to building a JavaScript framework. It'll teach you how to build a framework and draw
on real-world code from projects like jQuery
Along the way we'll explore some fundamental parts of modern JavaScript:
• Browser capability detection
• Clean, reusable API design
• Benchmarking and performance
• Writing minifier-friendly JavaScript
• Using GitHub!
5. MIXU'S NODE BOOK
By Mikito Takada
A comprehensive and interesting NodeJS overview covering many aspects in details.
6. THE LITTLE MONGODB BOOK
By Karl Seguin
Discover NoSQL with MongoDB and commons Javascript usage patterns.
The Little MongoDB Book book is licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported license. You should not
have paid for this book. You are basically free to copy, distribute, modify or display the book. However, always ask attribute the book to Karl Seguin and do not use it for commercial purposes.
7. UP AND RUNNING WITH NODE.JS
By Tom Hughes-Croucher
EDIT : Open Feedback Publishing System (OFPS) is now retired
This book introduces you to Node, the new web development framework written in JavaScript. You'll learn hands-on how Node makes life easier for experienced JavaScript developers: not only can you work on the front end and back end in the same language, you'll also have more flexibility in choosing how to divide application logic between client and server.
Written by a core contributor to the framework, Node: Up and Running shows you how Node scales up to support large numbers of simultaneous connections across multiple servers, and scales down to let you create quick one-off applications with minimal infrastructure. Built on the V8 JavaScript engine that runs Google Chrome, Node is already winning the hearts and minds of many companies, including Google and Yahoo! This book shows you why.
- Understand Node's event-loop architecture, non-blocking I/O, and event-driven programming
- Discover how Node supports a variety of database and data storage tools
- Learn best practices for writing easy-to-maintain code for Node
- Get concrete examples of how to use the various Node APIs in practice
- Take advantage of the book’s complete API reference
READ
8. JS IN TEN MINUTES
By Spencer Tipping
This guide is for anyone who knows some Javascript but would like a quick intro to its features.
9. SINGLE PAGE APPS IN DEPTH
By Mikito Takada
Learn the best practices for implementing single page web apps.
10. STREAM HANDBOOK
By James Halliday (substack)
EDIT : The resource is now retired
A free short e-book that teaches you how to write node programs with streams, by James Halliday a famous NodeJS supporter that published numerous awesome NodeJS modules. This document covers the basics of how to write node.js programs with streams.
READ
11. WRITING MODULAR JAVASCRIPT WITH AMD, COMMONJS & ES HARMONY
By Addy Osmani
In this article, we're going to look at three formats for writing modular JavaScript: AMD, CommonJS and proposals for the next version of JavaScript, Harmony.
12. DOM ENLIGHTENMENT
By Cody Lindley
Exploring the relationship between JavaScript and the modern HTML DOM.
This book is not an exhaustive reference on DOM scripting or JavaScript. It may, however, be the most exhaustive book written about DOM scripting without the use of a library/framework.
For the purpose of this book (i.e. grokking the concepts), the author is going to sidestep the browser API mess and dying browser discrepancies in an effort to expose the modern DOM.