I got a book few months ago named “Full Stack JavaScript” by Azat Mardan, that I have read just now. I also got a request for writing review of it. So here I want to share non-biased review which should be information for you guys to decide whether to read or not read this book.
Summary:
Full Stack JavaScript is a book not about JavaScript as a language. If you are interested in JavaScript as a language, then either read https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS or my previous article Good Resources For Learning Javascript . It is about how to use JavaScript when your role is Full Stack JavaScript developer. It don’t say it in book but this is what I got from it. It go through different tools and frameworks you need to know or approach that you should use. It give introduction to numerous things. Not only tools but also cloud platforms which you can use to deploy your app. It also discuss agile methodologies.
Content of Book:
In first chapter, Azat discusses Agile methodologies and frontend and backend concepts and flow and introduces NodeJS and MongoDB as well.
In second chapter, you can learn that how to setup your environment. Your local environment, setup Git for deployment, Windows Azure and Heroku deployment related stuff setup, your SSH Keys generation and MongoDB installation and setup.
Third Chapter name is JQuery and Parse.com but it have lot of different things in it. Introduction to cross domain, AJAX and JSON. Then he introduced lot of stuff that is typically useful for frontend developers: JQuery functions, Twitter Bootstrap, LESS and then finally an example using Twitter API and JQuery. In same chapter, Parse.com is used for an example app and then deployment on Windows Azure and Heroku. So in short he tried to cover all those different things implementation in one chapter.
Fourth chapter is mostly related to Backbone.js and its loading using AMD and require.js etc. Good thing about this chapter was that writer tried to cover only one thing in this whole chapter. Then in Chapter 5, it was related to usage of Backbone JS in example he started for parse.com. Chapter 4 and 5 were better than previous chapters but unfortunately my intention wasn’t to learn backbone.js as I was more interested in Nodejs and MongoDB.
Chapter 6 and 7 were interesting for me as Chapter 6 is completely on Node JS and and Chapter 7 is completely on MongoDB.
In chapter 6, Azat explained NodeJS core modules and NPM and deployment on different could platforms. It was good to know NodeJS modules infromation but the key thing that he missed here was explainging Event Loop and flows. However, he showed usage with example, and introduced unit test for example code. Then instead of discussing how to test or what to test, he just provided a list of test frameworks.
Other interesting chapter is chaper 7 which is all about MongoDB. He told installation, configuration and usage of MongoDB.
Then in Chpater 8, writer just put everything together including examples of UI and API and deployment.
Pros and Cons and Opinion:
It is worth mentioning that everything discussed above in book is in no more that 208 pages. So it is good that you can get overview of all that stuff in 208 pages and it is bad because how much detail of so many things can be included in 208 pages? So it is good if you want to get overview of all that stuff in less time and in one book, but it is bad if you want to get detail of any of these things.
This book is more a list of articles introducing lot of different things and providing list of rest of stuff.
Writing Style:
Overall writing style of Azat Mardan is very good and code is well explained, however the way he structured chapters that is multiple things in one chapter, and one thing spanning over multiple chapters was little bit annoying.
So is this useful book for you?
It depends on who you are and what you want from this book. It is very good book for people who have JS language knowledge and aiming to be Full stack developer and want to immediately start learning different things Full Stack developer should know. But if you are like me, who already know about these things but want to get deeper look and wants to do development while taking occasionally opinion of writer, then it is not for you. Because this book gives overview of lot of stuff but does not get into depth of even one thing.
This is just my opinion after reading book, if you think anything different then feel free to discuss in comments below.
In case if you want to buy this book then you can buy it here: Full Stack JavaScript: Learn Backbone.js, Node.js and MongoDB