Understanding ECMAScript 6: The Definitive Guide for JavaScript Developers

by Nicholas C. Zakas

ECMAScript 6 represents the biggest update to the core of JavaScript in the history of the language. In Understanding ECMAScript 6 , expert developer Nicholas C. Zakas provides a complete guide to the object types, syntax, and other exciting changes that ECMAScript 6 brings to JavaScript. Every chapter is packed with example code that works in any JavaScript environment so you’ll be able to see new features in action.

You’ll
–How ECMAScript 6 class syntax relates to more familiar JavaScript concepts
–What makes iterators and generators useful
–How arrow functions differ from regular functions
–Ways to store data with sets, maps, and more
–The power of inheritance
–How to improve asynchronous programming with promises
–How modules change the way you organize code


Whether you’re a web developer or a Node.js developer, you’ll find Understanding ECMAScript 6 indispensable on your journey from ECMAScript 5 to ECMAScript 6.

Genres: Programming, Computer Science, Technology, Technical, Nonfiction, Software

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2016

About the author

Chinese: 尼古拉斯

Nicholas C. Zakas is a front-end consultant, author, and speaker. He worked at Yahoo! for almost five years, where he was front-end tech lead for the Yahoo! homepage and a contributor to the YUI library. He is the author of Maintainable JavaScript (O’Reilly, 2012), Professional JavaScript for Web Developers (Wrox, 2012), High Performance JavaScript
(O’Reilly, 2010), and Professional Ajax (Wrox, 2007). Nicholas is a strong advocate for development best practices including progressive enhancement, accessibility, performance, scalability, and maintainability.

Reviews

[Vilius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written for people who already know javascript and just want to find out about new features in es6. Brief and straight to the point.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you have a solid JavaScript foundation and are looking to cut your teeth on the ES6 features, this is a great place to start. I've written many times before about how well Zakas presents material, and how he makes it easy to learn; there's no exception to that here. My criticisms are minor:

1. I'm not sure who consulted on the organization, but I'd have likely tried to consider what the key features are that people are looking to adopt when adopting ES6 to their stack, and then organize it that way. For example: modules before proxies (and before most other chapters, TBH). HOWEVER: this is nothing you can't fix by being willing to read things out-of-order and use the Table of Contents.

2. Some of the examples could have been more useful. For example: when presenting the Proxy and Reflect APIs, something more concrete than replicating the built-in behavior would have been good. HOWEVER: this is a pretty minor nit, as it doesn't take much imagination to come up with your own examples to use in experimenting.

Overall: highly recommended if you need a good reference that illustrates the new ES6 features.

[Sean Helvey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Phew! Glad to be done with this one. The author did a great job making lemons into lemonade, but the language has become so large, it was a bit of a slog. 5 stars for the author, 1 for the language, making an average of 3.

Good news: The chapter on modules and the quick overview of es7 toward the end may have been my favorite parts, so hang in there. I wouldn't feel too guilty about skipping a few chapters on your way either.

[Alona 2156 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best ES6 book along with what Axel Rauschmayer writes. These are my two favorite authors of Javascript books. The title of this book is very true, it's a guide for developers, not for someone looking for JS fundamentals but for people who already develop something. It tells about all new stuff ES6 standard brought to Javascript world. Although sometimes this book is too deep and tells about internals of JS itself and how it works inside it was a great read for me. I think it would be great to label books somehow so that people understand whether the book is intended for juniors/middles/seniors so that people know what to expect.

Actually this is how a programming book should be written, mostly books are very trivial and tell in other words everything we can read on MDN. I absolutely liked parts about sets and maps and typed arrays. Very well explained.

[Niteesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author has really covered all the topics in very definitive manner. It provides in depth knowledge for all covered topics. I have been working on client side validations using java-script since last 2 years but before reading the book I didn't know that there is some reflection API in JavaScript. This book taught me it very well.

I am currently looking if some complete reference book is available.

[Wook Wook · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was well written, and wonderfully comprehensive. It made reading the next book (ECMAScript 2017) one of the great disappointments of my life. That might be an understatement. But the comment about this book isn't an overstatement. Really good with great depth.

[Mohamed Krid · Rating 5 out of 5]

i urge anyone interesting to learn javascript to read this book . very good reference to learn the new features added to the language . the explanation is smooth . you need to review the book from time to time

[Deen john · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book on ES6.
Nicholas C. Zakas as always , has explained everything in detail.

[Theopract · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must have book for javascript developers!

[Andrii · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good and well explained ES 6 book. There are couple not covered enough topics. But in general the book could be recommended for junior/middle level developers

[Derek Bridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zakas is masterful, as ever. This brought me nicely up-to-date. However, what I miss is examples of a more practical nature - when to use these new features.

[Héctor Iván Patricio Moreno · Rating 5 out of 5]

En este libro encontrarás una referencia explicada muy completa de todos los cambios que hicieron a ECMAScript 6 un gran evento para los programadores de JS.

El autor demuestra una experiencia muy extensa y un conocimiento muy profundo del funcionamiento de JS, y lo usa para explicar de manera increíble cada parte que cambió, así como también el funcionamiento tanto de implementación tanto del lenguaje como de los engines de JS.

Recomiendo este libro a todo aquel necesite profundizar su conocimiento de JS aunque no sea específicamente saber las características de ES6 lo que necesita. Como practicante de JS puede aprender muchísimo, aunque también puede ser leído como una referencia, por partes, o cuando se necesite saber de un tema en específico.

Los temas que más me llamaron la atención:

- Generadores e Iteradores
- Implementación de las clases y atributos no modificables
- Símbolos

Gracias a Nicholas Zakas por todas las buenas explicaciones que produce.

[Vishal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clear and concise! Zakas' book "The Principles of Object-Oriented JavaScript" was a pleasure to read, having explained succinctly the core of the JavaScript language (ES5) in 92 pages! This sequel of sorts is around 300 pages long, because JavaScript (ES6) has grown so much since 2009. One other benefit of reading this book is that in many instances, Zakas takes the time and effort to highlight why new features in ES6 were added and why those features make writing code in JavaScript easier and safer than writing equivalent code in ES5. As always, he doesn't waste your time with verbose examples when explaining ES6 features. The online edition is already in final form and it is free to read. All in all, Zakas is a great author. I highly recommend this book, though it should not be read by complete JavaScript novices. This one should ideally be read after reading his ES5 book that I mentioned earlier.

[Anton Antonov · Rating 5 out of 5]

With the increasing ES6 support in V8, every JS developer should be familiar with the new syntax features that it has to offer.

Nicholas C. Zakas does at amazing job at tackling most of the new features and providing really practical code examples of what it was in ES3, ES5 and how it could be done in ES6.

I especially liked the classes and class expressions sections where author showcases the equivalent of the new code.
Generators and Iterators are probably the most important section of the book and it's also explained very concise with enough examples.

There are 9 TODOs (literally) in the book that will be written in near future, but that shouldn't stop anyone from reading the book.

I would recommend this to anyone!

[Michael Koltsov · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is still a work in progress, therefore you can freely read it and contribute through Github.

From my point of view, this book should be considered not more than a manual listing most of the features of ECMAscript 2015 with examples. It's not yet finished, but imho i doubt that it will be more than a list of features.

On the other side, it can save you a lot of time if you're looking for one place to get familiarized with most of the new constructions that were added to JS recently and you're not in a mood to chase a lot of blog posts dispersed throughout the Internet.

My score (book is still 60% complete, hence this is not a final score) 3/5

[Daniel R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A comprehensive review of the changes to JavaScript introduced by ECMAScript 6 (aka ECMAScript 2015). The chapters are organized well starting with the changes you are most likely to use on a daily basis and progressing to more advanced changes later on. There is a great mix of explanation and code samples throughout the book. Certain chapters like "Proxies and Reflection API" I found excessively repetitive and feel the concepts could have been conveyed much more succinctly. Overall a great guide and reference to all the new changes.

[Anton Antonov · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the better ES6 learning materials out there.

It's fairly short and simply straight to the point.

In my opinion, book has a slight imbalance of text and code examples. It could use more of the later and improve with a bit more realistic examples.

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book isn't done but everyone doing frontend development work should read what is written so far.

[Marcos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great in detail explanation of the new features of ES6. Clean, concise text with useful examples that make it easy to digest.
The best resource on ES6 I have read so far.

[Arthur Zhuk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nicholas did a great job of going into detail of ECMAScript 2015. Would be great if he used more ES6 syntax in his own code examples when given the chance but it wasn't a big problem.

[Kaju Janowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

JS -> ES6, well done

[Alpha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is OK, but JavaScript is still ugly.

[Krishnam Raju · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best javascript book that I have read ever

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read a few chapters.