I'm young and haven't programmed in C. This is a great resource though: http://eloquentjavascript.net/

On an equally irrelevant note, I'm young and have programmed in C.

Did 'K&R' mean anything to you?

Came here to paste a link to the good parts. I see you've already got that.

Honestly, the most useful reading for me has been the annotated source to Backbone and Underscore. Amazing that he wrote it, even more amazing that he annotated it. Guy's a genius.

http://backbonejs.org/docs/backbone.html http://underscorejs.org/docs/underscore.html

There's nothing as canonical for js as K&R was for C. My guess is that it's just changing a little too fast.

If you want raw unassailable reference docs (to learn js from the ground floor in comprehensive detail) you can't go wrong reading the standards:

http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecm...

http://es5.github.io/

The rest you kinda gotta cull from various resources. learn.jquery.com is nice and Mozilla kicks ass, as usual: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...

Information about ES6 generators and other stuff coming down the pipe seems to be scattered all over the place. Best resource I've found seems to be this one:

http://people.mozilla.org/~jorendorff/es6-draft.html

Though promisejs.org and promisesaplus.com are worth browsing.

I'd say "Professional JavaScript for Web Developers", by Nicholas C. Zakas

Professional JavaScript for Web Developers is more like the "C: A Reference Manual" (Harbison / Steele) rather than K&R.

To me, "The Principles of Object-Oriented JavaScript" by the same author is the equivalent of K&R. Just don't be misled by the title, it covers the functional aspects of JavaScript as good as any other book and does not push for object-oriented programming as the one true way at all.

Totally agree. This is the book I usually recommend to people wanting to get serious about Javascript.

There isn't anything.

K&R is canonical because in 1978 books were the way programming language information was distributed. It was a different time. Hell, in 1979 Godel Escher Bach won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction. Can you imagine the general public reading something that challenging for fun these days?

On the flip side, most programming books are more informative than what is essentially a specification. The industry has come a long way.

> Hell, in 1979 Godel Escher Bach won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction. Can you imagine the general public reading something that challenging for fun these days?

The relationship between "Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction" and "general public reading [...] for fun" has always been pretty distant.

Thanks all. Good responses. Though I have to say I'm a bit nostalgic for formality at times (and slightly disappointed). Hope that doesn't make me a snob. On the Godel, Escher, Bach, note - I just heard a great interview with Douglas Hofstadter on Radiolab - worth a listen.