The Path

Some of you have started reading this book with the goal of completing all six books, back to back.

I would like to caution you to consider changing that plan.

It is not my intention that YDKJSY be read straight through. The material in these books is dense, because JavaScript is powerful, sophisticated, and in parts rather complex. Nobody can really hope to download all this information to their brains in a single pass and retain any significant amount of it. That’s unreasonable, and it’s foolish to try.

My suggestion is you take your time going through YDKJSY. Take one chapter, read it completely through start to finish, and then go back and re-read it section by section. Stop in between each section, and practice the code or ideas from that section. For larger concepts, it probably is a good idea to expect to spend several days digesting, re-reading, practicing, then digesting some more.

You could spend a week or two on each chapter, and a month or two on each book, and a year or more on the whole series, and you would still not be squeezing every ounce of YDKJSY out.

Don’t binge these books; be patient and spread out your reading. Interleave reading with lots of practice on real code in your job or on projects you participate in. Wrestle with the opinions I’ve presented along the way, debate with others, and most of all, disagree with me! Run a study group or book club. Teach mini-workshops at your office. Write blog posts on what you’ve learned. Speak about these topics at local JS meetups.

It’s never my goal to convince you to agree with my opinion, but to encourage you to own and be able to defend your opinions. You can’t get there with an expedient read-through of these books. That’s something that takes a long while to emerge, little by little, as you study and ponder and re-visit.

These books are meant to be a field-guide on your wanderings through JavaScript, from wherever you currently are with the language, to a place of deeper understanding. And the deeper you understand JS, the more questions you will ask and the more you will have to explore! That’s what I find so exciting!

I’m so glad you’re embarking on this journey, and I am so honored you would consider and consult these books along the way. It’s time to start getting to know JS.