In Order

So now you’ve got a broader perspective on what’s left to explore in JS, and the right attitude to approach the rest of your journey.

But one of the most common practical questions I get at this point is, “What order should I read the books?” There is a straightforward answer… but it also depends.

My suggestion for most readers is to proceed through this series in this order:

1. Get started with a solid foundation of JS from Get Started (Book 1) — good news, you’ve already almost finished this book!

2. In Scope & Closures (Book 2), dig into the first pillar of JS: lexical scope, how that supports closure, and how the module pattern organizes code.

3. In Objects & Classes (Book 3), focus on the second pillar of JS: how JS’s this works, how object prototypes support delegation, and how prototypes enable the class mechanism for OO-style code organization.

4. In Types & Grammar (Book 4), tackle the third and final pillar of JS: types and type coercion, as well as how JS’s syntax and grammar define how we write our code.

5. With the three pillars solidly in place, Sync & Async (Book 5) then explores how we use flow control to model state change in our programs, both synchronously (right away) and asynchronously (over time).

6. The series concludes with ES.Next & Beyond (Book 6), a forward look at the near- and mid-term future of JS, including a variety of features likely coming to your JS programs before too long.

That’s the intended order to read this book series.

However, Books 2, 3, and 4 can generally be read in any order, depending on which topic you feel most curious about and comfortable exploring first. But I don’t recommend you skip any of these three books—not even Types & Grammar, as some of you will be tempted to do!—even if you think you already have that topic down.

Book 5 (Sync & Async) is crucial for deeply understanding JS, but if you start digging in and find it’s too intimidating, this book can be deferred until you’re more experienced with the language. The more JS you’ve written (and struggled with!), the more you’ll come to appreciate this book. So don’t be afraid to come back to it at a later time.

The final book in the series, ES.Next & Beyond, in some respects stands alone. It can be read at the end, as I suggest, or right after Getting Started if you’re looking for a shortcut to broaden your radar of what JS is all about. This book will also be more likely to receive updates in the future, so you’ll probably want to re-visit it occasionally.

However you choose to proceed with YDKJSY, check out the appendices of this book first, especially practicing the snippets in Appendix B, “Practice, Practice, Practice!” Did I mention you should go practice!? There’s no better way to learn code than to write it.