Most programming languages contain good and bad parts, but JavaScript has more than its share of the bad, having been developed and released in a hurry before it could be refined. This authoritative book scrapes away these bad features to reveal a subset of JavaScript that's more reliable, readable, and maintainable than the language as a whole--a subset you can use to create truly extensible and efficient code.
Considered
JavaScript expert by many people in the development community, author Douglas Crockford identifies the abundance of good ideas that make JavaScript an outstanding object-oriented programming language-ideas such as functions, loose typing, dynamic objects, and an expressive object literal notation. Unfortunately, these good ideas are mixed in with bad and downright awful ideas, like a programming model based on global variables.
When Java applets failed, JavaScript became the language of the Web by default, making its popularity almost completely independent of its qualities as a programming language. In
, Crockford finally digs through the steaming pile of good intentions and blunders to give you a detailed look at all the genuinely elegant parts of JavaScript, including:
Syntax
Objects
Functions
Inheritance
Arrays
Regular expressions
Methods
Style
Beautiful features
The real beauty? As you move ahead with the subset of JavaScript that this book presents, you'll also sidestep the need to
all the bad parts. Of course, if you want to find out more about the bad parts and how to use them badly, simply consult any other JavaScript book.
With
, you'll discover a beautiful, elegant, lightweight and highly expressive language that lets you create effective code, whether you're managing object libraries or just trying to get Ajax to run fast. If you develop sites or applications for the Web, this book is an absolute must.

An epic story of lust, cruelty, and sensuality, this historical novel is set in Carthage in the days following the First Punic War with Rome.

Η Ελληνορωμαϊκή αυτοκρατορία του Πωλ Βεν περικλείει την εξέλιξη του αρχαίου κόσμου και ανοίγει, έτσι, ένα παράθυρο για την κατανόησή του αλλά και για την κατανόηση όσων ακολούθησαν (του χριστιανισμού συμπεριλαμβανομένου). Εκ πρώτης όψεως ένας κοινός πολιτισμός, αφού ο νικητής, η Ρώμη, αφομοιώνεται από τον πολιτισμό του κατακτημένου ελληνισμού. Αφομοιώνεται όμως εντελώς; Και, κυρίως, τι σημαίνει αυτή η αφομοίωση; Αυτή η πρώτη "παγκοσμιοποίηση" στην Ιστορία, που εξελίσσεται σε έναν κόσμο μεγάλης ποικιλίας ταυτοτήτων ο οποίος ούτε την ενότητά του εξασφαλίζει αλλά ούτε και κονιορτοποιείται. Με δυο λόγια: και εθνικότητα και αυτοκρατορία.<br /><br />Η πολιτιστική ομοιογένεια των δυο πολιτισμών, του ελληνικού και του ρωμαϊκού, αναλύεται στα διάφορα κεφάλαια του βιβλίου, χάρη σε μια σειρά θεμάτων που το ένα μετά το άλλο αναδεικνύουν τι είναι κοινό στους δυο πολιτισμούς αλλά και τι είναι ανομοιογενές ή διαφορετικό: η εξουσία, η ψυχολογία του πολίτη, οι κοινωνικές τάξεις, η ταυτότητα, η σχέση με την Ανατολή, η τέχνη και η πολιτική προπαγάνδα, η στάση απέναντι στη βία, το πάθος, η αναζήτηση της προσωπικής τελειοποίησης.<br /><br />Μακριά από τα εύκολα στερεότυπα περί πολιτισμών και ωραιοποιημένης πολιτιστικότητας και από την τρέχουσα ρητορεία περί ταυτοτήτων, το έργο του Πωλ Βεν είναι μια ιστορική διευρεύνηση των αναπόφευκτων συγκρούσεων στα σημεία συνάντησης της διαφορετικότητας.<br /><br />Ένα βιβλίο που μας οδηγεί στην αναθεώρηση όσων γνωρίζαμε για την αρχαιότητα, αλλά και σε έναν στοχασμό για τον σύγχρονο κόσμο και τη δική του παγκοσμιοποίηση.

<i>Le Médecin malgré lui</i> est une comédie-farce en trois actes en prose.<br />Sganarelle, bûcheron alcoolique, est pris pour un médecin rénommé, même q'il n'a aucune idée de ce qu'un médecin doit savoir.

L’École des femmes est une comédie en cinq actes et en vers.<br /><br />La comédie de Molière <i> L'École des femmes</i> est considérée par les critiques pour être parmi ses plus beaux travaux. L'histoire d'un homme qui est tellement obsédé par l'infidélité féminine qu'il projette d'épouser sa jeune pupille naïve, qu'il a formé pour être la femme parfaite, est un exemple classique du style comique de Molière.

« Le fait romain, parfois qualifié de “miracle romain”, consiste en ceci : une simple bourgade du Latium commence par dominer les autres bourgades latines, puis établit son autorité sur la péninsule italienne, avant de s’imposer à l’univers connu pour huit siècles au moins. De toutes les questions que pose le destin historique de Rome se détache immédiatement celle de ses origines. »<br />Ce manuel, unique en son genre, publié en 1991 et réédité sept fois dans la collection « Premier Cycle », est devenu LE manuel d’initiation à l’histoire de Rome, tant par sa conception volontairement chronologique et événementielle que par la présentation des faits et des sources. Organisé en trois parties (Des origines à l’Empire – Rome, maîtresse du monde – Un autre monde romain), complété de tableaux chronologiques, de cartes et plans, d’un index et d’un lexique, il met en évidence la vie politique, économique et sociale, l’évolution des mentalités durant l’imperium romanum qui était, rappellent fort justement les auteurs, constitué de deux mondes, l’Occident latin et l’Orient gréco-latin, dissociés par la suite autour de Rome et de Constantinople.

1596. Deux ans avant l'édit de Nantes qui met fin aux guerres de Religion, Marseille la catholique s'oppose à Henri IV, l'ancien protestant. Une rébellion, une indépendance que ne peut tolérer le roi.<br /><br />À La Roue de Fortune se croisent des passés que l’on cherche à fuir et des avenirs incertains : un chevalier usé et reconverti, une vieille femme qui dirige la guilde des assassins, un couple de magiciens amoureux et en fuite, et la patronne, ancienne mercenaire qui s’essaie à un métier sans arme.<br /><br />Les pions sont en place.<br />Le mistral se lève.<br />La pièce peut commencer.

Sophisticated, witty, and ingeniously convincing, Susanna Clarke's magisterial novel weaves magic into a flawlessly detailed vision of historical England. She has created a world so thoroughly enchanting that eight hundred pages leave readers longing for more.
English magicians were once the wonder of the known world, with fairy servants at their beck and call; they could command winds, mountains, and woods. But by the early 1800s they have long since lost the ability to perform magic. They can only write long, dull papers about it, while fairy servants are nothing but a fading memory.
But at Hurtfew Abbey in Yorkshire, the rich, reclusive Mr Norrell has assembled a wonderful library of lost and forgotten books from England's magical past and regained some of the powers of England's magicians. He goes to London and raises a beautiful young woman from the dead. Soon he is lending his help to the government in the war against Napoleon Bonaparte, creating ghostly fleets of rain-ships to confuse and alarm the French.
All goes well until a rival magician appears. Jonathan Strange is handsome, charming, and talkative-the very opposite of Mr Norrell. Strange thinks nothing of enduring the rigors of campaigning with Wellington's army and doing magic on battlefields. Astonished to find another practicing magician, Mr Norrell accepts Strange as a pupil. But it soon becomes clear that their ideas of what English magic ought to be are very different. For Mr Norrell, their power is something to be cautiously controlled, while Jonathan Strange will always be attracted to the wildest, most perilous forms of magic. He becomes fascinated by the ancient, shadowy figure of the Raven King, a child taken by fairies who became king of both England and Faerie, and the most legendary magician of all. Eventually Strange's heedless pursuit of long-forgotten magic threatens to destroy not only his partnership with Norrell, but everything that he holds dear.

<i>The System of the World,</i> the third and concluding volume of Neal Stephenson's shelf-bending Baroque Cycle (<i>Quicksilver</i> and <i>The Confusion</i>), brings the epic historical saga to its thrilling - and truly awe-inspiring - conclusion.<br /><br />Set in the early 18th century and featuring a diverse cast of characters that includes alchemists, philosophers, mathematicians, spies, thieves, pirates, and royalty, <i>The System of the World</i> follows Daniel Waterhouse, an unassuming philosopher and confidant to some of the most brilliant minds of the age, as he returns to England to try and repair the rift between geniuses Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. After reluctantly leaving his family in Boston, Waterhouse arrives in England and is almost killed by a mysterious Infernal Device. Having been away from the war-decimated country for two decades, Waterhouse quickly learns that although many things have changed, there is still violent revolution simmering just beneath the surface of seemingly civilized society. With Queen Anne deathly ill and Tories and Whigs jostling for political supremacy, Waterhouse and Newton vow to figure out who is trying to kill certain scientists and decipher the riddle behind the legend of King Solomon's gold, a mythical hoard of precious metal with miraculous properties.<br /><br />Arguably one of the most ambitious -- and most researched -- stories ever written, Stephenson's Baroque Cycle is set in one of the most turbulent and exciting times in human history. Filled with wild adventure, political intrigue, social upheaval, civilization-changing discoveries, cabalistic mysticism, and even a little romance, this massive saga is worth its weight in (Solomon's) gold. <br /><i>Paul Goat Allen</i>

In the year 1689, a cabal of Barbary galley slaves -- including one Jack Shaftoe, aka King of the Vagabonds, aka Half-Cocked Jack -- devises a daring plan to win freedom and fortune. A great adventure ensues -- a perilous race for an enormous prize of silver ... nay, gold ... nay, legendary gold. In Europe, the exquisite and resourceful Eliza, Countess de la Zeur, is stripped of her immense personal fortune by France's most dashing privateer. Penniless and at risk from those who desire either her or her head (or both), she is caught up in a web of international intrigue, even as she desperately seeks the return of her most precious possession. Meanwhile, Newton and Leibniz continue to propound their grand theories as their infamous rivalry intensifies, stubborn alchemy does battle with the natural sciences, dastardly plots are set in motion ... and Daniel Waterhouse seeks passage to the Massachusetts colony in hopes of escaping the madness into which his world has descended. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky above their heads–so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals stand between the killer robots of Krikkit and their goal of total annihilation.
They are Arthur Dent, a mild-mannered space and time traveler who tries to learn how to fly by throwing himself at the ground and missing; Ford Prefect, his best friend, who decides to go insane to see if he likes it; Slartibartfast, the indomitable vice president of the Campaign for Real Time, who travels in a ship powered by irrational behavior; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed ex-president of the galazy; and Trillian, the sexy space cadet who is torn between a persistent Thunder God and a very depressed Beeblebrox.
How will it all end? Will it end? Only this stalwart crew knows as they try to avert “universal” Armageddon and save life as we know it–and don’t know it!

L’ordinateur est la plus puissante machine de l’humanité. Son histoire, c’est celle de Turing, de Babbage, de Byron, d’Einstein, de Pascal et d’Orwell. C’est aussi celle des automates, des métiers à tisser, de la machine à écrire et de l’ampoule électrique. Pour Gabriel Rivages, c’est d’abord l’histoire de Steve Jobs, enfant adopté, ancien hippie, employé chez Atari, père de Lisa, créateur du Macintosh et storyteller. Prométhée est puni. Des enfants naissent. Al-Kharezmi invente l’algèbre. On se tire le Yi King. On peint des chefs-d’œuvre. On fait la guerre. Bugs Bunny imite Tarzan à Hawaï. C’est la finale du Super Bowl : 1984 ne sera pas comme 1984. Brautigan écrit Tous veillés par des machines de grâce aimante et un père admire son fils.<br /> <br />Pomme S conclut la trilogie 1984 et le périple américain de Gabriel Rivages, entamé dans Hongrie-Hollywood Express (2011), qui met en scène Johnny Weissmuller, athlète olympique et premier Tarzan du cinéma parlant. Mayonnaise (2012), le deuxième volume, mêle le destin de Rivages à celui de l’écrivain-culte Richard Brautigan, le dernier des beatniks.

Quelle mouche a piqué nos contemporains ? Ils ne paraissent regarder vers l’avenir que la peur au ventre, cherchant les premiers signes d’une apocalypse écologique que les films hollywoodiens ne cessent de nous narrer. Ils ont le sentiment d’être menacés par les ondes, la radioactivité, par leur assiette même, devant laquelle ils se souhaitent bonne chance plutôt que bon appétit. En un mot, certains discours ont fait de nous des hypocondriaques permanents à peine étonnés que surgisse une nouvelle alerte sanitaire, fatalistes face aux scénarios de fin du monde qui sont devenus les narrations dominantes de notre avenir commun. <br />Ce livre, en convoquant de nombreux exemples, met en évidence ce que cette nouvelle idéologie de la peur et de la précaution a de mortifère. Son objectif est de montrer que les promoteurs de l’« heuristique de la peur », pour emprunter l’expression du philosophe Hans Jonas, commettent une erreur qui pourrait nous être fatale en tentant de mettre sous contrôle le moindre de nos gestes. Il est donc impératif de construire une nouvelle histoire de notre avenir commun, de réenchanter le risque, et pas seulement pour sortir d’un climat morose, mais pour notre survie même.<br />

<i>Quicksilver</i> is the story of Daniel Waterhouse, fearless thinker and conflicted Puritan, pursuing knowledge in the company of the greatest minds of Baroque-era Europe, in a chaotic world where reason wars with the bloody ambitions of the mighty, and where catastrophe, natural or otherwise, can alter the political landscape overnight.<br /><br />It is a chronicle of the breathtaking exploits of "Half-Cocked Jack" Shaftoe--London street urchin turned swashbuckling adventurer and legendary King of the Vagabonds--risking life and limb for fortune and love while slowly maddening from the pox.<br /><br />And it is the tale of Eliza, rescued by Jack from a Turkish harem to become spy, confidante, and pawn of royals in order to reinvent Europe through the newborn power of finance.<br /><br />A gloriously rich, entertaining, and endlessly inventive novel that brings a remarkable age and its momentous events to vivid life, <i>Quicksilver</i> is an extraordinary achievement from one of the most original and important literary talents of our time.<br /><br />And it's just the beginning...<br /><br />(back cover)<br /><br />This P.S. edition includes 16 pages of supplementary materials.<br /><br />Cover design by Richard L. Aquan<br />Cover illustration from the Mary Evans Picture Library; painting of Great Fire of London on stepback

Facing annihilation at the hands of the warlike Vogons is a curious time to have a cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his curious comrades in arms as they hurtle through space powered by pure improbability - and desperately in search of a place to eat. Among Arthur's motley shipmates are Ford Prefect, a long-time friend and contributor to the The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the three-armed, two-headed ex-president of the galaxy; Tricia McMilan, a fellow Earth refuge who's gone native (her name is Trillian now); and Marvin, who suffers nothing and no one gladly.
Source: douglasadams.com

新作《Anathem》，属于太空歌剧类型。从目录上简介我们可以一窥其主要内容： 从童年开始，Raz就生活在一座有3400年历史的修道院的围墙之后，一个科学家、哲学家和数学家的避难所——远离无知、无理性和无法无天的saecular世界，那个世界一直处于繁荣和毁灭、世界大战和气候巨变的循环往复中。直到有一天，更高级的力量、恐惧的驱使，只有这些生活在修道院的学者才有能力转移这一次迫在眉睫的大灾难。一个接一个，Raz和他的军团召集起来朝着无法预知的世界前进。

A sweeping history of Islam and the West from the seventh century to today<br /><br />Europe and the Islamic World sheds much-needed light on the shared roots of Islamic and Western cultures and on the richness of their inextricably intertwined histories, refuting once and for all the misguided notion of a "clash of civilizations" between the Muslim world and Europe. In this landmark book, three eminent historians bring to life the complex and tumultuous relations between Genoans and Tunisians, Alexandrians and the people of Constantinople, Catalans and Maghrebis―the myriad groups and individuals whose stories reflect the common cultural, intellectual, and religious heritage of Europe and Islam.<br /><br />Since the seventh century, when the armies of Constantinople and Medina fought for control of Syria and Palestine, there has been ongoing contact between the Muslim world and the West. This sweeping history vividly recounts the wars and the crusades, the alliances and diplomacy, commerce and the slave trade, technology transfers, and the intellectual and artistic exchanges. Here readers are given an unparalleled introduction to key periods and events, including the Muslim conquests, the collapse of the Byzantine Empire, the commercial revolution of the medieval Mediterranean, the intellectual and cultural achievements of Muslim Spain, the crusades and Spanish reconquest, the rise of the Ottomans and their conquest of a third of Europe, European colonization and decolonization, and the challenges and promise of this entwined legacy today.<br /><br />As provocative as it is groundbreaking, this book describes this shared history in all its richness and diversity, revealing how ongoing encounters between Europe and Islam have profoundly shaped both.

Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of the The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out of work actor.
Together this dynamic pair begin their journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitch Hiker's Guide "A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have" and a galaxy-full of fellow travellers: Zaphod Beeblebrox - the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out to lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ball-point pens he has bought over the years.

At first, only a few things are known about the celestial object that astronomers dub Rama. It is huge, weighing more than ten trillion tons. And it is hurtling through the solar system at an inconceivable speed. Then a space probe confirms the unthinkable: Rama is no natural object. It is, incredibly, an interstellar spacecraft. Space explorers and planet-bound scientists alike prepare for mankind's first encounter with alien intelligence. It will kindle their wildest dreams... and fan their darkest fears. For no one knows who the Ramans are or why they have come. And now the moment of rendezvous awaits — just behind a Raman airlock door.