JavaScript Everywhere: Building Cross-Platform Applications with GraphQL, React, React Native, and Electron 1st Edition

UPDATE (9/16/20) — The publisher reached out to me about fixing this issue, and I can confirm the new printings of the book do not have the issue the rest of this review mentions with regards to the readability.So, I'm updating my review to 5 stars. Out of the many programming books I've used, this is one of the best. It's really what I needed in terms of breadth—a guide to building JavaScript apps for every platform.I also recommend readers refer to the GitHub for this book to easily access the code and updates for it.The customer service I received from the publisher was wonderful and really proved O'Reilly cares about their books, authors, and customers.---------------------PREVIOUS REVIEW: I highly recommend you do not purchase this book until the publisher fixes the issues with the unreadable figures. There are several examples like the picture I listed in this review throughout the book where it's difficult to even read what the screenshot says (and ironically, it's more legible through my camera...!)I contacted Amazon and explained the issue and said how I'm sure the publisher just isn't aware of the problem, and the customer support person said he notified the publisher and assured me the replacement he was going to send wouldn't have the issue... and I also had to return the copy I owned (annoying—I don't want to have to package the thing up, drive to the UPS store, drop it off, etc)Well, after all that, the next copy I got was EXACTLY the same with the same issues.Super super frustrating, and I cannot recommend this book until the issue is fixed (especially for the price of these things). I'm writing this review to warn buyers and to hopefully notify the publisher / author that the contrast on "figures" in the book / the print quality of those figures is off and needs to be fixed.So far though, I've found the book's content overall to be pretty good and, honestly, exactly what I need—a guide for someone who already knows how to code / knows decent amounts of the technologies used in the book, but has trouble putting it all together.

I'm mainly a frontend programmer and found this to be tremendously helpful. It has great introductions to needed tools, concepts and approaches to getting a JavaScript-focused app set up across platforms. I was especially thankful for the detailed look at getting MongoDB working as I've struggled with that in the past.My only major criticism is that I wish it had covered more topics! Especially testing, although the author themself admits they feel bad about not including more info about testing. That aside, it's a solidly informative and approachable book for developers looking to boost their technical understanding.

I was a little flustered at first because something didn't work in the early setup pages and the O'Reilley publishers' email bounced back my message, but the author personally reached out to me on a forum and told me how to fix the problem, so I thank him enormously and look forward to enjoying the book!

What I like about this book is that it is detailed and thoughtful. Often in blog posts you see this common phrase: "simply do X." In this book you get a lot of context like: "X is a tool to help us do Y, here's how you install it." When covering as much ground as this book does this context is enourmously helpful.

I only gave this book 2 stars because it covers a range of topics and seems well-organized.However there are a lot of issues with incomplete code that lead to errors. If you go to the accompanying github repo, you will see that it hasn't been updated in a year. Just search 'O'reilly JS Everywhere github' and you'll find it.One specific instance is when creating the 'Notes' schema for the initial MongoDB models and connection section. They do not add an 'id'. MongoDB does not autogenerate this. While it is not a terribly difficult problem to solve, you would have to go through troubleshooting and know how to fix this.In my opinion, books like this should at least offer some guidance for potential issues. It's good practice for problem solving, but it can also lead to stumbling blocks that cause some developers to be unable to complete the overall project. I would not spend money for that if I'm trying to learn something.Save your money. Wait for a Udemy sale, and go find a course there. They are frequently updated and offer much more.

I just started this book and can already tell it will help me learn everything that goes into building applications.I got a minor in computer science and we learned how to code but never how to apply that code into something other than command prompt programs.This book guides you through building an app that essentially can let you create users that can create and edit txt files and choose who can see them or edit them.I recommend this book to beginners or intermediates alike that want to apply some of their basic programming knowledge into something that is actually practical.

Sadly, this excellent book is already outdated and the source code provided via the GitHub is not being updated. Three chapters in and it's using old packages and outdated node.js. There are a few work arounds listed in the GitHub issues, but they produce other errors. I'm returning it. :(

The arrangement in this book is not bad, but those information is really outdated and I cannot get the expected result when I run the example code there.