You can pretty much learn anything online these days if you know where to look and if you are willing to pay a buck or two in the process.
Books are still my go to method for primary learning for two main reason. They run in sequential order guiding you along the process and secondly you can write on them. Those two things are still missing from an online course or free video online. But also, they're portable. You can pick them up and set them anywhere and not have to worry about internet or power.
If you are new to web development, or just need to brush up on your skills I definitely suggest you pick up the following 3 books in order to set up a strong foundation and begin to build your amazing portfolio's.
The first one will dive into HTML and CSS, the skeleton of the web, while the second one will go in depth into JavaScript, from a low-level up. And lastly, the 3rd one will go into the biggest updates made to the JavaScript specification since its inception, also dubbed ES6.
HTML & CSS: Design and build websites
I'm a big fan of visual learning. There is something about seeing a large and colorful 'thing' that makes it stick around in you memory longer. This book looks fantastic and that's the biggest selling point for me. It definitely does a decent job at covering the fundamental principles of HTML and CSS, but it does so in a fun page-turning way.
That's what makes this book great for anyone starting out. Instead of spending hours reading through paragraph after paragraph of definitions and technical jargon, you get to see what the entire process looks like in book form.
There are full-color screenshots of actual code with the actual output presented throughout the reading with clear instructions so that by the end, you too can have your own static HTML and CSS webpage set up. You can pick up a copy here.
Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja
This book is a classic in the realm of JavaScript. It is written by John Resig the creator of the massively popular JavaScript framework jQuery. And it is a thorough to say the least. Once you are done with the book right above, this should be your next read in order to get a very strong understanding of the JavaScript language and ecosystem.
The book goes into JavaScript starting from a very low-level view. As someone who has been a web developer for over 10 years I can say that there is plenty there that I was unaware of.
But definitely don't let that put you off from getting it. It is a handy resource that you are going to need at some point, believe. The first time that you find yourself needing to remember how closures work in JS, you'll wish you had this book.
You can pick up a copy right over here.
3. Understanding ECMAScript6
Now that you have read book #1 and #2 above, it is time to learn the latest in the JavaScript specification. And believe me, there is alot to cover in that department.
The biggest update to the JavaScript specification came in 2015 and was dubbed ES6. While that naming convention has been updated since then and it is now referred to as ES Next or ES2020 or ES2021 (depending on the year), ES6 is where most programmer's fell out of the loop when it came to JavaScript.
Everything from variable scope using let, var and const to the arrow function syntax to all of the low-level under the hood elements that make JavaScript tick.
So if you have not had the time to sit down and real the official 800 technical specification on the language that is JavaScript, then I'd definitely recommend this book to start getting up to date.
You can pick that book up over here.
Walter Guevara is a software engineer, startup founder and currently teaches programming for a coding bootcamp. He is currently building things that don't yet exist.
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