Reader reviews

A worthwhile addition to my shelf, with realistic expectations.

I bought this on a whim after seeing it mentioned in a forum thread, and I am glad I did. The code samples assume a particular environment, which took a bit of fiddling to get running properly. There is a section near the end that ties several earlier ideas together in a way I had not seen before. Recommended, with the caveat that it is not a gentle introduction.

Worth every page. I have already recommended it to two colleagues.

I came to this book already familiar with the basics, and it still had plenty to offer. The author clearly knows the subject deeply and has thought hard about how to teach it. I particularly liked the way the author builds up from simple cases before introducing the harder material. The early chapters move quickly through material I already knew, but the later sections were genuinely new to me. If you have the prerequisites, this is an easy recommendation. I will be keeping it on my desk rather than the shelf.

Not quite what I expected from the description, but there is material here.

I picked this up after getting stuck on a project and it turned out to be exactly the right book at the right time. The chapters on extended reality are the strongest — the examples are stripped down but complete, and I could follow along without constant guessing. It is denser than the page count suggests, and I found myself slowing down around the middle. Three stars feels about right. It will stay on my shelf, but it will not be the first one I reach for.

Excellent from start to finish. No filler, no padding.

This is the third book I have read on javascript this year, and it is comfortably the best of them. A few of the examples could be more realistic, but the underlying points come across clearly. I appreciated the honesty about what the book does not cover — it saved me from expecting things that were not there. The examples are small enough to type out and experiment with, which is exactly what I want from a book like this. I have already recommended it to two colleagues and will recommend it to more.

Exactly the book I needed. Straight to the point and genuinely useful.

I have been working with javascript for a few years now and I still found plenty here that was new to me. The exercises at the end of each chapter are worth doing — they caught a few misconceptions I did not know I had. A couple of chapters felt like they could have been merged, but that is a minor complaint. The chapters on javascript are the strongest — the examples are stripped down but complete, and I could follow along without constant guessing. Worth the money and the reading time, without hesitation.

Finally, a book that treats simulation with the care it deserves.

There is a particular kind of technical book that is dense without being difficult, and this is one of them. It is denser than the page count suggests, and I found myself slowing down around the middle. The exercises at the end of each chapter are worth doing — they caught a few misconceptions I did not know I had. This is the book I wish had existed when I started working with simulation.