Marko Anastasov wrote this on May 20, 2011
Book review: jQuery Pocket Reference
This is the first time we post a book about a book here, hopefully it goes on.
jQuery Pocket Reference is more than a reference. Depending on where you are with jQuery, it can be an introduction, reintroduction, or a resource to fill in your knowledge gap.
I’ve been using jQuery for years, but I’ve never sat down to read some material about it. It’s always been about reading other people’s code, learning about a particular detail or technique via a blog post, or just browsing the API.
That’s probably the way it goes, but I’m happy that I picked up this book because it sort of wraps everything up. I feel like I really do hold the entire library in my head now.
Usually reference books end up being 90% reprints of the API, but this one isn’t. It explains the internals just enough, the dualities of certain functions and their purpose. There are a lot of explanations in fact, because that’s the consequence of JavaScript as a language, browsers being different and the goal of having a powerful but concise API.
I do not know whether I will actually use this book as a reference while coding. The final chapter which lists and quickly explains all jQuery functions is well done, but the habit of opening http://docs.jquery.com is strong. For the moments when I forget about a function and what else similar is available and all the ways they work, it seems a perfect fit. I’ll keep it around.
