The Principles of Object-Oriented Javascript (2014)

Foreword

This book’s title and introduction make Nicholas’s intentions clear: he has written it to help class-minded (that is, C++ or Java) programmers transition to a language without classes. In the book, he explains how encapsulation, aggregation, inheritance, and polymorphism can be accomplished when writing JavaScript. This is the ideal text to bring a knowledgeable programmer into the fold of object-oriented JavaScript development. If you are reading this book as a developer from another language, you are about to be treated to a concise and skillfully worded JavaScript book.

However, this book also stands to serve programmers coming from within the JavaScript fold. Many JavaScript developers have only an ECMAScript 3 (ES3) understanding of objects, and they are in need of a proper introduction to ECMAScript 5 (ES5) object features. This book can serve as that introduction, bridging a knowledge gap between ES3 objects and ES5 objects.

Now, you might be thinking, “Big deal. Several books have included chapters or notes on the additions to JavaScript found in ES5.” Well, that is true. However, I believe this to be the only book written to date that focuses on the nature of objects by giving ES5 objects first-class citizenship in the entire narrative. This book brings a cohesive introduction to not only ES5 objects, but also the bits of ES3 that you need to grok while learning many of the new additions found in ES5.