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. šŸ™‚

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. Not a lottery winner type, but maybe it’s my time?
    High Performance JavaScript is my choice – would love to win a copy

  2. ‘High Performance JavaScript’
    Will make our skill-set broader,
    For wriggling fingers on a keyboard
    In the most cunning order.

  3. I’m stuck supporting a site in IE6, so any performance improvements are welcomed! (High Performance JavaScript)

  4. I already have “RegEx Cookbook.” So I would love to be in the sweepstakes to win “High Performance JavaScript”

    –Howard

  5. Prematurely optimizing by trying to win a copy of an unreleased book.

    (High Performance Javascript)

  6. I would love to get the newest 0’Reilly book, “High Performance Javascript”. I am just returning to the world of web programming and can use all the help I can find. And, I LOVE O’Reilly books…both the Head First and regular types. In fact, I have recently purchased three separate books to help me ease back into this world! It would be wonderful not to have to purchase this book!

  7. Would love a copy of High Performance Javascript. I think not only would it be a great read but also a great resource for a young web developer like myself and help take my understanding of javascript to the next level!

  8. It makes me cry, it makes me laugh, to think you want my autograph!

    Seriously, congrats and a tip of the hat to the authors! With a chapter on Build and Deployment and other “wide-ranging content” for those of us who truly use Javascript,our cross-browser woes should dissipate rapidly!

  9. I love writing javascript code, so getting a book like this would mean a lot to me as a broke student.

    I hope I am picked as one of the winners for the book.

  10. Congratulations on finishing this book. I’d love to get a copy of the book. JavaScript performance is currently a very important topic, since almost every modern web application is based on this scripting language.

  11. This book looks very promising. I also would like to get a copy of it, to improve my JavaScript skills.

  12. I’ve just started reading the RE cookbook, so should be finished by Feb 24th to start the JS book. Count me in! Thanks!

  13. looks more like: “i want to increase the number of accesses and comments on my blog”… šŸ˜›
    however, i also give a try to win the book šŸ˜‰

  14. Right now, my javascript is low performance. Hopefully, after reading High Performace Javascript, my code will be at least medium performance.

  15. Well, I am past learning Javascript basics. The timing is perfect now for me to move onto improving the performance. Pl. send me the book ASAP šŸ˜‰ Thanks.

  16. If this book is half as good as Douglas Crockford’s then it’ll be a great one for sure. Looking forward, Stoyan is a kickass developer so I’m sure this book will follow suit.

  17. I’m a massive advocate of best practices and squeezing every last drop of performance out of my websites. A book like “High Performance JavaScript” (which is the one I’m most eager to read) would greatly improve my skills and help me share the knowledge with some of the junior developers we have. Look forward to reading this book either way, win or lose šŸ™‚

  18. I’d love to win a copy of High Performance JavaScript.

    I enjoy reading your creative solutions to regular expression problems so I’m sure, at the very least, your chapters won’t disappoint.

  19. Thanks for offering the free copies. It’s much appreciated. Looking forward to reading this one!

  20. This looks like a good read, can’t wait to get my hands on it. Chapter list is promising. And you know it will be good stuff when you see some of the talks of NCZ: http://www.slideshare.net/nzakas

    Count me in for the High Performance JavaScript giveaway šŸ˜‰

  21. Awesome offer, I wasn’t aware of this new book by Zakas. Please include me for the new book. Why should I win it? Because I’m a fellow Greek and Nicholas would be proud that one of his fellow countrymen got it!

  22. Book looks fantastic. I spend a lot of time on my code (pure stuff, not frameworks) trying to figure out how I can make it run faster, especially when dealing with large DOM changes and, as always, AJAX – but the performance part of AJAX that usually must be optimized is the server side script, the JS is pretty well straightforward, or so I believe.

    I thoroughly enjoy building custom content management systems for my clients using PHP/MySQL/AJAX, but on live sites, the interface changes to the DOM always seem to be delayed. I would love to get a copy of this book to see what I can do to improve my skills and my knowledge of high performance JS….in short:

    pickmepickmepickmepickmePICKME!

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