Master JavaScript Programming with 18 Free Open-Source Books

Learning JavaScript Design Patterns

By Addy Osmani (254 pages)

Design patterns are reusable solutions to commonly occurring problems in software design. Learning JavaScript Design Partners explores applying both classical and modern design patterns to the JavaScript programming language.

• Learn the structure of design patterns and how they are written
• Understand different pattern categories, including creational, structural, and behavioral
• Walk through classical and modern design patterns in JavaScript
• Use several options for writing modular code—including the Module pattern, Asynchronous Module Definition (AMD), and CommonJS
• Discover design patterns implemented in the jQuery library
• Learn popular design patterns for writing maintainable jQuery plug-ins

This book is designed for professional developers wanting to deepen their knowledge of design patterns and how they can be applied to the JavaScript programming language.

Learning JavaScript Design Patterns is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 unported license.

Master Space and Time with JavaScript

By Noel Rappin (Basics – 92 pages, Objects in JavaScript – 92 pages, Backbone – 120 pages, Ember – 120 pages )

Master Space and Time With JavaScript is a four book series that teaches modern JavaScript, including the JavaScript object model, testing, Backbone, and Ember.

The 4 books:

• The Basics – contains an introduction to Jasmine testing and jQuery, plus a look at JavaScript’s object model
• Objects in JavaScript – more complete examples of using and testing objects in JavaScript, including communication with a remote server and JSON
• Backbone – continues building the website using Backbone.js to create single-page interfaces for some more complex user interaction
• Ember – builds out completely different parts of the website using Ember.js to create complex client-side interactions

Master Space and Time With JavaScript is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License .

DOM Enlightenment

By Cody Lindley (180 pages)

DOM Enlightenment teaches you how to manipulate HTML more efficiently by scripting the Document Object Model (DOM) without a DOM library. Using code examples in cookbook style, the author explains modern DOM concepts to illustrate how various node objects work.

The book is targeted at developers who want to understand the purpose and value provided by jQuery for scripting the DOM. The author also wants to help developers tasked with scripting web documents that only run on modern browsers.

Chapters cover:

• Node overview – examines node object types, properties and methods for working nodes, getting a nodes value and more
• Document nodes – includes document child nodes, detecting DOM specifications/features using document.implementation.hasFeature()
• Element nodes – create elements, get the tag name of an element, verifying an element has a specific attribute and more
• Element node selecting – selecting/creating a NodeList, contextual element selecting, and more
• Element node geometry & scrolling geometry – shows how to use getBoundingClientRect(), elementFromPoint(), scrollHeight, scrollWidth, scrollIntoView()
• Element nodes inline style – CSS properties
• Text nodes – good treatment on manipulating text
• DocumentFragment nodes – creation and use of DocumentFragment nodes
• CSS style sheets & CSS rules – including how to create a new inline CSS style sheet
• JavaScript in the DOM – covers <script> element node, how to use defer, async, and more
• DOM events – DOM event types, the event flow, adding event listeners to element nodes, window object, and document object
• Creating dom.js

The DOM Enlightenment HTML version is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 unported license.

jQuery Fundamentals

By Rebecca Murphey (108 pages)

jQuery Fundamentals gives an overview of the jQuery JavaScript library. It aims to make you comfortable tackling problems. Example solutions to all exercises are given.

Chapters cover:

• JavaScript basics – covers the basic concepts of JavaScript, as well as some frequent pitfalls for people who have not used JavaScript before
• jQuery basics – selecting elements, choosing selectors, refining & filtering selections, working with selections, CSS and more
• jQuery core – utility methods, checking types, data methods, feature & browser detection, and more
• Events – jQuery provides simple methods for attaching event handlers to selections
• Effects – use the built-in settings, or provide a customized duration. You can also create custom animations of arbitrary CSS properties
• Ajax – Asynchronous JavaScript and XML allows for web pages that provide rich, interactive experiences
• Plugins – how to create a basic plugin, finding & evaluating plugins, writing plugins, and writing stateful plugins with the jQuery UI widget factory
• Performance Best Practices – covers a number of jQuery and JavaScript best practices including selector optimization
• Code Organization – looks at various code organization patterns you can use in your jQuery application and explores the RequireJS dependency management and build system
• Custom Events – illustrates jQuery’s custom events system to make a simple Twitter search application

The book is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States license.

Developing Backbone.js Applications

By Addy Osmani (374 pages)

This book teaches you how to create structured JavaScript applications, using Backbone’s own flavor of model-view-controller (MVC) architecture. Backbone.js is a lightweight JavaScript library that adds structure to your client-side code. It makes it easy to manage and decouple concerns in your application, leaving you with code that is more maintainable in the long term.

Learn the essentials of Backbone’s models, views, collections, events, and routers. The book also looks at two popular Backbone add-ons: MarionetteJS and Thorax. Marionette simplifies your Backbone application code with robust views and architecture solutions. Thorax is used to build meaty Backbone applications.

The book is targeted at novice to intermediate developers. It is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.