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Ask HN: Curriculum for learning JavaScript, JQuery, and Node?

9 points by optimus ↗ HN
From recent posts, I'm concluding that Javascript is the next thing I should learn (employability, resilience, usefulness). There are so many resources, however, so I'm not sure where I should begin?

JavaScript: The Good Parts? Online tutorials and "classes?" Opensource Github projects? Other books? Should I learn CoffeeScript "instead" of pure JS?

My goals include learning Node and Angular (should I even go all-in on a framework at this point?) too.

I thoroughly know HTML and CSS and, at the sake of sounding redundant, I'm a beginning novice in Rails.

7 comments

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mmanfrin
Codeschool as courses on all of these, and they are very good.
iends
They are only good if you've never coded before.

If you have, they take at most a few hours to do and are largely a waste of money.

mmanfrin
And as such they sound perfect for the poster of this Ask HN, as he stated he knows HTML/CSS and is a novice at Rails.

Thanks for your complete dismissal of my post because of your opinion on what works for you.

natdempk
Agreed. They are geared towards roughly novice level, and they have a Javascript track that will cover much of what OP wants at an acceptable intro level.
anshumans
I'm in a similar boat. For Javascript, I found http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Definitive-Guide-Activate-G... to be a good place if you have little to no familiarity of Javascript. For Node, I'm using the links suggested here http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2353818/how-do-i-get-star....

For Angular, I've just followed the documentation on angularjs.org and tried applying it to various web projects that I have already.

I feel that there are a lot more projects in pure JS compared to CoffeeScript that even if you did learn CoffeeScript, you can't avoid encountering pure JS.

malandrew
Eloquent JavaScript - Marijn Haverbeke

Effective JavaScript - Dave Herman

Functional JavaScript - Michael Fogus

Once you know JavaScript, dig into the codebase of larger mature projects by the most prolific/well-known developers in the JavaScript community, like TJ Holowaychuk, Isaac Schleuter, Dominic Tarr, Raynos, Marijn Haverbeke, Oliver O'Steele, James Halliday, Mikeal Rogers, SamuraiJack, Gozala, Creationix, Kritowal, Marak, coolaj86, TooTallNate, indexzero, hij1nx, pkrumins, John Resign, Douglas Crockford, etc.

Sorry if I missed any names.

BenWhit
IMO, learn pure js but while learning the basics, get your hands dirty with some frameworks, small side projects or tutorials and workshops. This will help you find what framework you enjoy or really "clicks" with your personal preferences. Its also more fun then learning the syntax and structure of a new language. There will be another framework to learn next month but pure js is going to be around for a while.

Some good resources for learning JS from the ground up (pure js)..

Books (highly recommended):

- Javascript: The Definitive Guide

- Eloquent Javascript

- Professional JavaScript for Web Developers 3rd Ed.

Resources:

- https://learn.thoughtbot.com/javascript

- http://javascriptissexy.com/how-to-learn-javascript-properly...

- http://www.reddit.com/r/learnjavascript/comments/1oq8ns/lear...

- http://jstherightway.org/

For Angular (http://egghead.io) is a great resource for short/dense screencasts (from what I've heard/read)