JavaScript: The Good Parts

The best way I've found to learn JavaScript is through anything by Douglas Crawford. 'JavaScript the Good Parts' is especially good. [LINK] [VIDEO]

Crockford's "JavaScript: The Good Parts" is the gold standard for best practices. Pretty much anyone who works in JS will recommend it. Here's a video which is a condensed version of what's in the book: [VIDEO]

I will admit to having been an anti-JavaScript elitist (without really knowing JS.) This video changed my mind: [VIDEO] (google tech talk, "JavaScript: the good parts") Two facts mentioned in the video that I didn't previously know and make me feel better about JavaScript: 1- JavaScript is lisp in disguise 2- The name JavaScript is an inside joke referencing the language's differences from Java, not its similarities. That was enough to make me change my mind, and I'm currently enjoying learning JavaScript unashamedly. Browser differences and lack of standards are a PITA, but OTOH, they all have awesome debuggers - HTML+JavaScript may be the only UI toolkit + dev environment that comes packaged with ALL computers, and for that reason has the widest reach. There's no question that the JS world is a bit wild west compared to other languages, but there's also no question that the situation is getting better over time, and that depending on what you're coding, there are huge advantages to using it.

When comparing Office 2007 (and 2010) with Office 97 one can clearly see these are not "the same old apps". Especially when combined with the Office Servers. JavaScript isn't such a bad language. It's essentially Scheme in C cloths. It has first-class functions, lexical closures, prototype-inheritance and more. Just avoid the bad parts. See this Google Talk by Douglas Crockford [VIDEO]

I didn't see any links to videos - here is one from his Google tech talk in February: [VIDEO] . He also has a number of videos on YUI Theater ( [LINK] ). I also recommend checking out the javascript page on his website, plenty of javascript related material to keep you busy for hours: [LINK]

I found the book "JavaScript: The Good Parts" by Douglas Crockford to be very helpful in understanding the language. It's short and covers the main things you'll need to know. It's a good starting place. In fact, he gave a tech talk on the main topics of his book which you can find here: [VIDEO]

3 awesome videos on very specific topics: Dr James Grime / Numberphile - Encryption and HUGE numbers [LINK] Les Hazlewood - Designing a Beautiful REST+JSON API [LINK] classic: Douglas Crockford - JavaScript: The Good Parts [VIDEO]

Classics John Resig : The Dom is a mess [LINK] Javascript, The Good Parts [VIDEO] Speed up your Javascript [LINK] Brendan Eich : Fluent 2013: Brendan Eich, "JavaScript at 18: Legal to Gamble" [LINK] Paul Irish : 10 things I learned from the Jquery source [LINK] Less known but very interesting Building High-Performing JavaScript for Modern Engines [LINK]