Reading Tip - JS Cangaceiro

Reading and practicing the book Cangaceiro JavaScript, an adventure in the backlands of programming.

I'm really interested in the JavaScript language, and I've been studying it through videos, books, and hands-on work…

I already knew jQuery and the JavaScript used only for DOM manipulation, but I wanted more: I wanted to learn to program JavaScript on the backend, organize code, apply the MVC pattern in a JavaScript project, build a Controller, connect to a database (IndexedDB, kind of like Java's H2 #notreally), build a DAO, a Service — everything I already knew how to do in a JavaEE or Spring project, I wanted to see how it works in JavaScript.

To learn about Node, Meteor, React — those JavaScript stacks used on the backend and frontend of web and mobile applications…

Demand is huge in the market for Node, Meteor, Angular, and React developers, both locally and internationally, with lots of opportunities to work remotely.

So, about 4 months ago I started reading and practicing the book: Cangaceiro JavaScript, an adventure in the backlands of programming, by Flávio Almeida.

Flávio uses a really fun language style — I enjoy the way people from Ceará speak, since I worked with several of them in the army… I always found it funny and entertaining.

So while reading the book you have fun and get motivated by the typical expressions of the "cangaço", "sertão", "nordestino", and so on.

You can buy the book here: https://www.casadocodigo.com.br/products/livro-cangaceiro-javascript

My reading and practice progress is on GitHub: https://github.com/tgmarinho/jscangaceiro — 58 commits from August 3rd, 2017 to December 9th, 2017.

Out of what I remember now, what I liked most in the book was:

Seeing how to build classes the way I used to in Java but now in JavaScript, Object Orientation in JavaScript, understanding the conventions adopted by JS developers, seeing Functional Programming — I already knew a bit of it from Java, and it was really cool to see those concepts here in JavaScript too. I found JS very powerful and Flávio showed that well in the webapp built and demonstrated throughout the book.

He explains in detail the construction of a Negotiations webapp, where you import negotiations through a REST API consumed from the webapp's server, you add a new negotiation by entering date, quantity, and value. He shows several techniques with Date, exception handling, and demonstrates design patterns like Factory, Decorator, DAO, Promises, among others…

You learn the basics of NPM — build, run, plugin installation — already getting a feel for Node and npm. The book isn't about NodeJS, but it makes use of it, so you start to get a basic notion.

It covers a bit about Modules, Babel, Async/Await, WebPack… and lots of code across ES versions (EcmaScript 5, 6, 7, 8). It's really a lot of code!

I recommend the book for anyone who wants to get into the JS world, both frontend and backend (fullstack).

The book is a source of inspiration for writing good code — standardized, well-organized, with great maintainability.

You need a bit of patience to reread what you didn't get and keep moving forward, then go back to revisit concepts that you may naturally forget. The thing is to practice and use the book and code as reference later. I confess there are things I swallowed dry, and others I understood well.

If, like me, you're a beginner but quite critical, wanting to do your best and always know things from the basics to the advanced, I recommend the read.

Well, my JS studies don't stop here — I'll look for more books and courses to keep learning… because I'm really enjoying it.

I think the next book will be JavaScript: The Definitive Guide (https://www.submarino.com.br/produto/112167569/livro-javascript-o-guia-definitivo), which I hope to borrow from the university.

Thank you Flávio for the book, and Casa do Código for publishing it.

NOTE: I don't earn anything from this — I just wanted to leave a reading tip and express my gratitude for the quality content from the authors and the editing and publishing work of Casa do Código.

I also made a video about the book: