JavaScript Resources
There are a ton of free or low cost resources for learning or improving JavaScript skills, and since I had recently gathered some together, I wanted to post them here for anyone to benefit from them. So without further ado:
- Short introduction to JavaScript from Mozilla (creators of Firefox)
- Another guide from Mozilla (probably some shared info between this and the above link)
- JavaScript Essentials (free online book)
- Eloquent JavaScript (free online book)
- Learn.AppendTo (videos)
- Essential JS Design Patterns (free online book)
- JavaScript Enlightenment (free pdf ebook)
- http://ontwik.com/category/javascript/ (lots of JavaScript videos, probably not for first-time learners, but great for expanding knowledge)
- JavaScript in 24 Hours (almost didn’t list this one, it is from 2002, so beware some techniques have been updated. But if you like the “in 24 hours” type books, it’ll teach the basics.)
jQuery (definitely learn JavaScript first, don’t make the mistake of jumping straight into jQuery)
- JQuery Fundamentals (free online book on jQuery)
Pick and choose from here, but lots of duplications to sort through as well:
http://stackoverflow…earn-javascript
As you get an understanding of the basics, definitely check out Crockford and his book, JavaScript, the Good Parts (not free). He quickly gets into advanced topics, and is extremely opinionated, but he knows JavaScript inside and out and you really can’t go wrong learning from him. He has some JavaScript videos as well that are quite interesting and educational: http://yuiblog.com/crockford/
Finally, you have the browsers (Chrome/Firefox) with tools (Chrome Inspector, Firefox Web Developer Tools & Firebug) and you can just practice things there. For something a little more interactive, you can use http://jsfiddle.net – this is a great sandbox tool to test out different things, see how things work, both with and without using a library.