Stoyan Stefanov - Object-Oriented JavaScript, 2nd Edition

Stoyan Stefanov is a Facebook engineer, author, and speaker. He talks regularly about web development topics at conferences and his blog www.phpied.com, and also runs a number of other sites, including JSPatterns.coma site dedicated to exploring JavaScript patterns. Previously at Yahoo!, Stoyan was the architect of YSlow 2.0 and creator of the image optimization tool Smush.it.

A "citizen of the world", Stoyan was born and raised in Bulgaria, but is also a Canadian citizen, currently residing in Los Angeles, California. In his offline moments, he enjoys playing the guitar, taking flying lessons, and spending time at the Santa Monica beaches with his family.

I'd like to dedicate this book to my wife Eva and my daughters Zlatina and Nathalie. Thank you for your patience, support, and encouragement.

To my reviewers who volunteered their time reviewing drafts of this book and whom I deeply respect and look up to: a big thank you for your invaluable inputs.

Kumar Chetan Sharma studied to be an electronics engineer and has always wanted to build an ultimate sound system. He then, by chance, got a part time job as a trainee HTML guy. From there he picked up CSS and JavaScript and there was no looking back. It was the time when JavaScript was used to validate forms or create fancy DHTML effects and IE6 was the only browser the world knew. He has been developing web applications since then, using LAMP stack. He has worked on white label social networking applications to web control panels for telecom and networked electrical charger infrastructures. He currently works as a frontend engineer for Yahoo! Search.

About the Reviewer

Alex R. Young is an engineering graduate with over 10 years of web and mobile industry experience.

He's the editor-in-chief of DailyJS, and writes regularly about all things JavaScript. He has also worked for major multinational corporations, including Thomson Reuters, and is currently writing a book about Node.

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Preface

This is the second edition of the highly rated book Object-Oriented JavaScript by Stoyan Stefanov , Packt Publishing . After the release of the first edition, in the last five years, JavaScript has moved from being mostly used in browsers for client-side technologies to being used even on server side. This edition explores the "language side" of JavaScript. The stress is on the standards part of the language. The book talks about ECMA Script, Object-Oriented JS, patterns, prototypal inheritance, and design patterns.

The book doesn't assume any prior knowledge of JavaScript and works from the ground up to give you a thorough understanding of the language. People who know the language will still find it useful and informative. Exercises at the end of the chapters help you assess your understanding.

What this book covers

, Object-oriented JavaScript , talks briefly about the history, present, and future of JavaScript, and then moves on to explore the basics of object-oriented programming (OOP) in general. You then learn how to set up your training environment (Firebug) in order to dive into the language on your own, using the book examples as a base.

, Primitive Data Types, Arrays, Loops, and Conditions , discusses the language basics: variables, data types, primitive data types, arrays, loops, and conditionals.

, Functions , covers functions that JavaScript uses, and here you learn to master them all. You also learn about the scope of variables and JavaScript's built-in functions. An interesting, but often misunderstood feature of the languageclosuresis demystified at the end of the chapter.

, Objects , talks about objects, how to work with properties and methods, and the various ways to create your objects. This chapter also talks about built-in objects such as Array, Function, Boolean, Number, and String.

, Prototype , is dedicated to the all-important concept of prototypes in JavaScript. It also explains how prototype chain works,