Projects
Young Coder
Young Coder is a Medium partnered publication about coding, science, and tech — usually with a twist. We love quirky science, creative coding, and all the places inspiration meets semicolons.
A Tiny Introduction to JavaScript
150 pages. 35 interactive exercises on CodePen. No setup required (just a web browser). Pay what you want, or get it completely free.
Halfwit to Hero
Our Halfwit to Hero series uses short chapters and online exercises to help you master tech topics like Excel and WordPress.
CodeQuest
Our (upcoming) CodeQuest series teaches programming to kids by wrapping the concepts in fantasy and science-fiction stories.
Cthulhu for Kids
Our Cthulhu Halloween project abridges a selection of stories by cosmic horror writer H. P. Lovecraft into more kid-friendly versions.
Other Publishers
If you’re looking for the books Matthew MacDonald has written for other publishers, including the Missing Manuals series for O’Reilly and .NET programming books for Apress, you can find them here.
A Little About Me
Here’s the deal. I published my first book twenty years ago, and I’ve been writing biographies like this one ever since, wondering how much should I say? How boastful should I sound? And do you want to hear about Matthew in the third person?
My brief life story is that I was a long-ago expert in web programming and (particularly) the .NET stack, for which I was a many-time Microsoft MVP. I wrote books for almost every tech publisher in existence (and many that aren’t any more), including O’Reilly, Apress, No Starch, Microsoft Press, Wrox, and Osborne McGraw-Hill. I’ve also written about the human brain, and teaching programming to kids. And I ran a Medium-partnered publication that featured hot takes on software design, programming humor, and everything in between. But these days, I’m spending most of my time wandering into unusual alleyways in search of new adventures.
I like to hear from other human beings, although I respond slowly. You can contact me by emailing matthew @ prosetech.com.

What’s New
New Release: JavaScript Cookbook, 3rd Edition
Finally off to the printers! I had a great time contributing to this one—it’s a cookbook-style guide for problems and practices with modern JavaScript, from fiddly things that frustrate you[…]
Read moreNew Release: A Tiny Introduction to JavaScript
150 pages. 35 fun and interactive exercises on CodePen. No setup required (just a web browser). Available in print (good) or as a a PDF ebook (even better). Best of[…]
Read moreWordPress: The Missing Manual, 3rd Edition
It’s been a while! The first edition of WordPress: The Missing Manual was released almost exactly 8 years ago to a very different world. Websites were complicated, web hosts were[…]
Read moreWe should get acquainted.
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