Five Free Copies of Upcoming O’Reilly Book ‘High Performance JavaScript’

Update (2010-02-25): This contest is now closed.

Book cover: High Performance JavaScript

Last year, Yahoo! engineer and all-around JavaScript badass Nicholas Zakas asked if I was interested in writing a chapter for a new book on JavaScript performance that he was working on. I agreed, and that book, High Performance JavaScript, is now available for preorder at Amazon and other fine book retailers.

In addition to the wide-ranging content by Nicholas and a chapter on string and regular expression performance by yours truly, chapters were also contributed by an awesome lineup of JavaScript performance gurus: Ross Harmes, Julien Lecomte, Stoyan Stefanov, and Matt Sweeney. This book is unique in its laser-focus on optimizing the performance of your JavaScript applications, and covers many advanced topics in the process. The chapter on strings and regular expressions provides what I think is easily the most in-depth coverage of cross-browser JavaScript regex performance currently available.

Here's the list of chapters:

  1. Loading and Execution
  2. Data Access
  3. DOM Scripting (Stoyan Stefanov)
  4. Algorithms and Flow Control
  5. Strings and Regular Expressions (Steven Levithan)
  6. Responsive Interfaces
  7. Ajax (Ross Harmes)
  8. Programming Practices
  9. Build and Deployment (Julien Lecomte)
  10. Tools (Matt Sweeney)

To celebrate the completion of this book, I'm giving away three copies. O'Reilly Media increased the offer to five books! All you need to do is comment on this post by February 24th, and I'll pick five people to send a copy to as soon as it's released (Amazon says March 15th). If you prefer, I'd be happy to send you a copy of Regular Expressions Cookbook instead (please note which book you want in your comment). Four winners will be chosen at random from the pool of unique commenters (I'll be tracking IPs), and the fifth based on the reason given for why you want a copy.

Make sure to include your email address in the comment form, since I'll need it to contact you if you're selected (your email address won't be used for any other purpose). Good luck, and congratulations to Nicholas Zakas and all the other authors on completing a fantastic new book!

Edit (2010-02-05): My blog has been offline more often than not for the first two days after posting this, and many people have reported that they were unable to post a comment. I apologize for the screw-up—my blog is now on a different server, and the problems should be resolved. Please try again!

Edit (2010-02-08): O'Reilly Media kindly offered to pick up the tab for this giveaway, and increased the winnings to five books!

Edit (2010-02-09): Nicholas Zakas posted more information about High Performance JavaScript on his blog: Announcing High Performance JavaScript.

Edit (2010-02-25): This contest is now closed. Winners will be announced here shortly.

Edit (2010-03-03): Following are the winners of this giveaway (the first four were chosen randomly):

  1. David Henderson
  2. Daniel Trebbien
  3. Lea Verou
  4. Stefan "schnalle" Schallerl
  5. Adam Crabtree

No. 5 Adam Crabtree, who wants to review the book and share it with members of the DallasJS Meetup Group, wins the nonrandom drawing for the best reason to win a copy. Runners up for this selection were Yoav, who promised to donate the book to a high school library after he's done with it; Nick Carter, who threatened me with his wrath if he doesn't win (I'll have to endure); Paul Irish, who kindly offered to have my last name corrected (to that of a sea monster) in exchange for winning; Alexei, a technical editor of a couple of Nicholas Zakas's previous books who'd like to know how many errors this one contains; and Marcel Korpel, who wants to improve his users' health by reducing the "headaches, general stress and insomnia" they suffer while waiting on his websites. 🙂

The winners have been informed by email about how to collect their prize. Thanks to everyone for playing!

283 thoughts on “Five Free Copies of Upcoming O’Reilly Book ‘High Performance JavaScript’”

  1. Awesome, I’d love to read the book and write a careful review exalting the goods and bashing the bads, if any 🙂

    JavaScript is in desperate need of good literature, so no good book can be left unnoticed.

  4. A reason I want this book? Nicholas is a great technical writer and well, he’s like the ultimate guru on all things scripty and prototypal.

  5. I’ve seen many “get a free copy of book X” giveaways on the web, but very few for a book I actually want to read (and in fact I’d really like to read both books, but High Performance JS sounds more interesting than the regex cookbook). Count me in!

  6. pass the first part of the challenge :), now i expect to win the second one, and i choose “High Performance JavaScript” book. i want to improve my code skills with this one.

  11. “High Performance JavaScript” sounds like a great book! Would love a copy. Can always improve my JS…

  15. Hand it over, yo! Or don’t, be stingy and incur my wrath, which consists of a few F bombs and a sore disposition should we ever meet and I’m cognizant enough to realize who you are.

    This is on my wish list and I’ll get it one way or another! JavaScript is my bread, butter, water and air! When I’m not coding JS I’m not living! Exclamation!!!

  23. i wanted this book so badly that I brought your blog down… ok, maybe not, but I did keep re-checking to see if it was back up so I could put my name in the pot for High Performance JavaScript.

    i’m starting to use JavaScript more and more and will be using SSJS in my new job and need to know every last detail on how to make these applications the best performing applications they can be 🙂

    congratulations on the book – i can’t wait to get a copy of my own!

  25. I’ve been pushing for professional javascript for a long time at work, this would be a great addition to my knowledge base to help with that!

  27. I’d love to get a gratis copy of “High Performance JavaScript”. I consider myself near expert on JS, but it’s always nice to gather more ideas. I’m constantly reading, and rethinking things. I’ve been doing JS since before the bad-old days (starting in 1995). And lived through the v4 browser API wars.

    This is a great time to be a fan of JS.

  28. Can I mention that me, John Resig, and a few other hackers were concluding that you really need to add that extra `a` to your last name because:
    1) all our failing google searches for you will succeed and
    2) fucking sea-monsters, dude!

    Also I want that book. If I get it I promise to “correct” your last name in it. Thx!!!

  29. Please count me in!
    I have been using YUI2 on my work projects and have used that really get into learning AJAX.

    I also watch a lot of videos on the YUI Theater, especially the ones presented by Douglas Crockford.

    Right now, I referencing the YUI article “Building Your Own Widget” (http://yuiblog.com/blog/2008/06/24/buildingwidgets/) and am loving every bit of it.

    By the way,I would love to get a copy of High Performance Javascript.

    Thank you!

  30. Sounds like a great book. Will make a great addition to Steve Souders’ High Performance Javascript and David Flanagan’s JavaScript: The Definitive Guide

  33. Wow. The authors of this book are experts in their field. I’ve read other books from these authors and they were brill. Please send me a copy.

    Ta

  34. This book might be interesting for my day to day work, can’t wait to have a look at the content.

  39. Thanks for the generous prize and contest. I have enjoyed Regular Expressions Cookbook and am really interested to see what High Performance Javascript offers. The chapter titles seem to cover what I would want.

    Part of me is skeptical or at least keeping hopes down and anticipation broad. Javascript has so many uses now but has always been something I still sort of hate to use. Cross browser issues is just one reason but even in a specific browser user settings or versions can cause problems. Especially it seems as you try to do more with Javascript.

    I am not saying I would ever give it up and I have loved all I have learned and do with it. It can just be so frustrating at times, like trying to make a beautiful page with the latest CSS. I admit recent browsers do seem to make it easier to count on the browser behaving.

    Thanks again for the contest and great prize! Either way I will put that book in my “wishlist” but it would be great to win a copy from you of High Perfomance Javascript (and see what jewels may be in the Regex chapter ;)).

  40. Since I already own the Regular Expressions Cookbook, High Performance JavaScript would definitely be my choice. Regardless of winning a copy, I will definitely own a copy as soon as it is a available!

  48. Will you give the book to guys in India too?
    I would love the High Performance Javascript book.

  50. yess! “high performance javascript”. I am FE by profession…I would love have this book to make faster and better websites.

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