Hey guys. Today I'm happy to announce the release of a free book I've written called 'Essential JavaScript & jQuery Design Patterns For Beginners'. Design patterns are reusable solutions to commonly occurring problems in software development and are a very useful tool to have at your disposal.

I wanted to write this mini-book was because I felt that patterns were an area a lot of new and intermediate JavaScript developers may not have had a chance to explore just yet and I'm hopeful my book will encourage you to check them out as they can be quite powerful.

Update: Version 1.5.x of the book and above are available in either online form to read for free or via O'Reilly if you'd like to pick up physical or eBook formats of the book. The latter is a lot more visually pleasing than the PDF/eBooks I used to generate and I hope this combination of free or purchase options satisfies most readers needs.

You can download my book and learning resources right away or read online if you'd prefer.

Why A Free Book?

There's some really fantastic literature available out there on design patterns in JavaScript (Stoyan Stefanov's excellent 'JavaScript patterns' book comes to mind) but a lot of the JS-centric material requires purchased literature.

These books are definitely worth buying, but I personally feel that until a developer is interested enough in learning about patterns to make the leap to invest in these, the majority of material they have accessible online doesn't focus enough on how to apply design patterns to JavaScript or jQuery. That's where having a free book of this nature comes in useful.

Contributors

I was the primary author of this book but I would like to thank JavaScript and design pattern enthusiast Alex Sexton for technically reviewing the content and ensuring that it was accurate. Alex also provides some insightful feedback on the book's content that helped improve it. I would also like to extend my thanks to Rebecca Murphy as her open-source book 'jQuery Fundamentals' served as the inspiration for me aiming to create a piece of useful free content that goes beyond the depth a standard article would.

What Does The Book Pack Contain?

The downloadable version of the book pack contains:

My 'Essential JavaScript & jQuery Design Patterns' Book

Printable Design Pattern sheets (courtesy Jason MacDonald)

Design Pattern Reference Cards (courtesy of DZone)

I'll be updating the book (and download links) with minor changes anytime they are made to keep the material as accurate as possible. If you have changes you would like to suggest, please feel free to get in touch and we can discuss them.

That's it!. Thanks for checking out this post. If you found my book helpful and would like to share it with your friends or colleagues, please feel free to click the retweet button below. Together we can help spread more awareness of design patterns in the JavaScript and jQuery communities.

Update: Due to popular demand, you can now also download Essential JavaScript & jQuery Design Patterns in ePub format (compatible with iBooks) as well as in PDF format. Just click on any of the download buttons above and you'll grab the latest version of the book from GitHub.