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Ask HN: Advice for Intermediate JS Programmer.

12 points by dillon ↗ HN
Ever since I first began creating on the web my passion for web development has grown. Thus I believe Javascript is the best language to specialize in. Any advice to further my knowledge in the language? Books to read? Articles? Certificates I should pursue?

5 comments

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Animus7
Ask not what you can do for Javascript, ask what Javascript can do for you.

Stop looking around for ways to get better. Open your editor and make something you think is cool. Rinse, lather, repeat.

franze
some real tips: read javascript the good parts http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596517748 and anything else form mr. http://www.crockford.com/

read (and understand) the "learning javascript with object graphs" series http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ahowtonode.org+Learning...

use node.js for the backend of your apps to come (start with https://www.duostack.com/ or for a quick hack http://jsapp.us/ )

do not use w3school ressources (they are wrong in critical cases) see http://w3fools.com/

and the most critical tip if you really want to get serious about javascript: learn other programming languages as well, then revisit javascript. one language can never be enough. take the learnings from other languages and apply them to javascript.

oh yeah and: do not seek cross browser compatibility. it's frustrating. (after you are good it will work cross browser anyway (excluding IE)).

[dead] Montagist
Haven't yet looked at the link for "learning javascript with object graphs" but it already sounds interesting. Also, I fully concur with your statement about learning other languages too; javascript is kind of it's own animal and it will either be hard to wrap your head around it's idiosyncracies otherwise, or you'll just be -too- used to them when you finally do try to use something else.

An actual compiled, non-dynamic language would be a good thing to tackle next.

-Terribly- curious as to why you believe javascript is the best language to specialize in, though.