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Reference

You may find some of these resources to be useful companion materials while learning JavaScript.

Sites

  • Mozilla Developer Network Mozilla has done a great job documenting many of the tools needed to build websites. Their documentation on JavaScript, in particular is great.

  • WebPlatform Joint project by many organizations to do a better job documenting HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc. This is still a work in progress, but it's pretty good for CSS. In particular, you should use this over W3Schools (which some people even recommend you avoid by always adding -w3schools to your searches).

  • nodeschool.io Great lessons to learn Node.js.

  • SlowmoJS and metajs Sites for visualizing code flow.

  • Can I Use… This site will tell you whether a browser includes certain functionality and will allow you to quickly choose whether you should use that feature or not.

Articles

Documentation

Arithmetic Operators Assignment Operators Comparison Operators Logic Operators String Operators typeof Dates setTimeout setTimeout (Node) readFile readline Debugger arguments bind

Tools

Node.js npm JSHint Mocha Chai JSDoc Commander.js Lo-Dash Sass

Online Books

  • Git Book More than you ever wanted to know about Git.

  • JSbooks Free JavaScript books.

  • JavaScript Allongé This book begins with a different approach to teaching common concepts. Overall, it is very focused on functional JavaScript. It does have an academic feel at times, but is also very focused on practical usage of the language. Depending on your learning style, it could be helpful or you may find it to be confusing.

Books

I learn best by doing rather than reading, so please note that I have only paged through most of these books. I'm sharing my thoughts from the little time that I spent with each book in hopes that it helps expedite your search. I would suggest reading reviews on Amazon and/or paging through the book yourself at Powell's to make sure the book matches your learning style and expectations.

  • jQuery and JavaScript Phrasebook, Brad Dayley Beginner, $30 Good reference book, lots of examples. The examples don't go too deep, it's may be helpful to help point you in the right direction, but it's not a cookbook.

  • Jump Start JavaScript, Ara Pehlivanian and Don Nguyen Beginner, $30 This is a pretty good intro book. It covers the basics without too much extra.

  • Learning JavaScript, Shelley Powers Beginner, $35 Good intro to JavaScript in the browser, and covers most everything you would want to know at an introductory level.

  • JavaScript: The Good Parts, Douglas Crockford Intermediate, $30 This is one of the top selling JavaScript books, and it contains good tidbits, gotchas, and opinions. Overall, it's not going to teach you JavaScript, but it will explain why some JavaScript developers write code in a specific way.

  • Node.js in Action, Mike Cantelon, Marc Harter, TJ Holowaychuk and Nathan Rajlich Intermediate, $45 This is one of the most popular Node.js books, and is a pretty in depth look at various parts of Node.js and frameworks that are built with Node.

  • Learning Node, Shelley Powers Intermediate, $35 This is a pretty in depth look at various parts of Node.js and frameworks that are built with Node. This books was written early in the lifetime of Node.js and may be slightly inaccurate because of that, but still covers details of up to date tools. Node.js in Action may be a better choice, but this has material that complements the other as well.

  • Maintainable JavaScript, Nicholas C. Zakas Intermediate, $25 This book will probably teach you some good practices to keep you from forming bad habits.

  • Effective JavaScript, David Herman Intermediate, $20 This is a good book to teach you some finer points of JavaScript, how things work, which language features to use, and which to avoid.

  • Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja, John Resig and Bear Bibeault Advanced, $40 This is a good advanced book that will teach you about many real world concepts and practices for front-end JavaScript. John Resig is the creator of jQuery. His blog also has a lot of valuable content.

  • Functional JavaScript, Michael Fogus Advanced, $30 This is an advanced book that gives good examples of advanced usage of functional programming concepts. It's a book that may cause your head to spin at times and sometimes has confusing explanations of concepts because it dives into each idea quickly. This book gives academic details on concepts like scope and closures.