Reddit reviews JavaScript: The Definitive Guide

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http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Definitive-Guide-David-Flanagan/dp/0596000480

JavaScript: The Definitive Guide by David Flanagan

https://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Definitive-Guide-David-Flanagan/dp/0596000480

It probably doesn't go over React and Angular though, just JavaScript.

you should learn to learn on your own. use your favorite search engine for each thing you want to learn about. my favorite search term is "_____ MDN", fill in the blank with whatever(".map MDN").

or buy a phone book like this one https://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Definitive-Guide-David-Flanagan/dp/0596000480

edit: good free book https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS/blob/master/up%20&%20going/README.md#you-dont-know-js-up--going

thinking chair edit: lol, read the ECMAScript 2016 Specifications here http://www.ecma-international.org/ecma-262/7.0/index.html#

https://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Definitive-Guide-David-Flanagan/dp/0596000480

I started off with teamtreehouse.com and did their front-end developer track, which introduced me to HTML / CSS / Javascript. I had tried Codecademy prior to that, but I felt that it was just teaching me to follow directions, not teaching me to code.

I read the core chapters of Javascript for Professional Web Developers and then did the same for Javascript: The Definitive Guide. This is what really gave me a strong base understanding of the Javascript language (arrays, objects, prototypical inheritance, etc.).

Along the way I started using jQuery for DOM manipulation, which really made things easy, but it felt just...too easy. Like I was cheating myself by using this magical tool that I didn't really understand. So I started reviewing the DOM-related chapters of the two books I mentioned above, which is something I'm currently still undertaking.

As for AngularJS I've been trying to follow this Thinkster.io guide which I think has a pretty solid set of resources. I'm by no means an advanced AngularJS user, but hopefully in time I'll continue to grow. My current project is for my wedding, and uses an array of JS objects, each containing hotel information (name, location, description, website, etc). It then plots them on a Leaflet.js map and adds an entry in the list below each time I add a new hotel. I was pretty proud of that.

As for Node.JS, Professional Node.js has been really good so far. I learned enough to implement an XMPP bot at work, which was well received.

I'm continuing my education on Node.js--specifically with Express which I'm learning at the moment through MEAN Web Development


As for Python, I just finished my first course (Programming Fund. I) which was in Python, so I know the basic syntax. PHP I can read well enough, but sort of gave up on learning (for now) once I found server-side Javascript.


It probably seems like I read a lot of books, but I do want to mention that I haven't 'finished' these fully; I usually read it section by section, sometimes jump between books. I just have an erratic reading style, I guess.

I think the most important things are:

• Find something you're passionate about
  
  I really enjoy Javascript and I think that has been a major motivator for me. I don't think I could have put the same level of effort into learning, say, PHP, which just doesn't excite me in the same way.
  
  
• Find a solid primary resource
  
  I know that the accessibility and clarity of a CS-book can be totally subjective, but from what I've found there are almost always a certain set of resources people universally praise (like Definitive Guide / Good Parts / Eloquent Javascript for JS). I spend a good amount of time researching what the community for the language / framework tend to agree is the best resource.
  
  
• Write out the examples from the books
  
  Especially for big tomes like The Definitive Guide which are just choke full of great snippets, I've found that its super useful to type out each example that you do not 100% understand. I've even found some errors in the books this way, which only served to help me understand how it really works even more.
  
  
  
• See if there's a problem you can solve along the way
  
  This was big for me when it came to Node. The company I work for had a lot of traffic in their Jabber rooms and it was difficult to quantify it. I'd like to move to a SW Developer position there someday, so I decided that I'd try to solve the problem by getting a Jabber bot that monitors and records activity based on room, user, time. Having a tangible goal in a real-world context made me more motivated to figure out how I could use my tools to effectively.
  
  
• Establish a good workflow
  
  Find an IDE you love and learn it inside and out. Get all those fancy-pants plugins and add-ons that make it hyper-functional. Find out which tools really 'click' for you and learn how they work. I've recently found myself very happy using Sublime Text as an IDE, Yeoman for boilerplate (love Grunt so much), and SASS as a CSS preprocessor (with Susy / Bourbon ). It just feels so satisfying having a solid setup, and I think that that kind of satisfaction with your environment makes it easier to learn.
  
  
  Overall I still think I have a lot to learn and wouldn't claim that I'm an expert in any realm yet, but eventually--with time--I hope to be.
  

The fact that it doesn't mention FF or Chrome does make it kind of dated and I'm not sure who wrote it, but I'm sure there are far better resources.

You'd probably be fine to just read everything Douglas Crockford and watch all of his videos. Check out:

1. "JavaScript: The Good Parts (Douglas Crockford)
   
2. Someone else already posted a link to "Eloquent Javascript" (Marijn Haverbeke)
   
3. and JavaScript: The Definitive Guide as well. (David Flanagan)
   
   I've found that the For Dummies book series pretty much suck (as far as programming books go anyway, don't know about the rest). They seem to have a weird model for writing informative books, but that's just my opinion.

Good luck with that, omitting semicolons can lead to cases a lot more nasty than that. It's a very bad habit. You really should do yourself a favor and read a damn book about JS basics, they have actual sections dedicated to this stuff. O'Reilly's "JavaScript the Definitive Guide" by David Flanagan is excellent and can be literally bought for pennies (although at that price you might as well pick up a PDF somewhere, I don't understand how anybody's making any money off it.)