Several weeks ago I was approached by my friend Dustin Diaz, Google UI engineer extraordinaire, about a new book he co-authored that was recently published. I said I would take a look and post something about it to thank him answering my endless JavaScript questions for years. The book is entitled Pro JavaScript Design Patterns. I'll be honest, that name sounds rather scary to me. My intellectual JavaScript acuity lies somewhere in between Cmd-C and Cmd-V if you catch my drift.
I've always thought of JavaScript in a bad way, as an unnecessary programming language that usually added bulk to applications that could have received the same utility from server-side tactics. Obviously my logic has changed with the advent of RIAs where JavaScript code is a large component of an entire application. For example, Skribit's widget uses the Appcelerator RIA platform to do more with less code, mostly JavaScript.
While I'm not within the target audience for Pro JS Design Patterns, my knowledge of server-side languages brings in some familiarity with what the book covers. It assumes you have a decent to moderate working knowledge of JavaScript to which you can apply various development techniques and implement design patterns. The overall result of structuring your code to abide by such design patterns revolves around maintainability (hugely important with larger applications) not to mention other nouns like speed and readability.
Pro JS Design Patterns covers (and I'm taking this straight from the TOC) OOP JS and the factory, bridge, composite, facade, adapter, decorator, flyweight, proxy, observer, command and chain of responsibility patterns. Leave a comment talking about anything JavaScript-related and how this book might help. I'll send this book to the best comment.