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Sorry if this is in the wrong stack exchange, wasn't sure if I should post it here, or overflow.

Just wanted to know of a few good online tutorials or a book I can do to get me started with Javascript (I know the small basics, alerts, css styles) and then maybe it branches to JQuery, or at least will give me enough of a base to start JQuery, and still understand the underlining language.

Thanks (eventually will be using JQuery for UI and interactions)

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Just for the record - don't use alert(""). If you need to let the user know something there are better ways, if you are debugging use console.log (F12 in IE/Firefox+Firebug or Ctrl+Shift+J in Chrome to show the console) – George Mauer Jul 5 '11 at 13:31
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Excellent choice to learn jQuery. After I learned jQuery, I've never bothered to exclude jQuery library from a web page I've designed for its ease of use. Once you've learned it, consider jQuery UI for a jQuery extension. It lets you do impressive visual enhancements on your page, while allowing you to easily switch out the skin at any point in the future (rather than redesigning everything). – Neil Jul 5 '11 at 13:39

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7 Answers

up vote 20 down vote accepted

jQuery - Seriously, read their documentation. I know most docs are useless except for as an occasional reference but jQuery's is by far the most concise, informative, and easy documentation I have ever read. The jQuery site also lists some community-vetted tutorials.

Javascript - Start here. The Mozilla Developer Center is absolutely the best javascript help on the internet. As a matter of fact, a frequently-quoted tip when googling for javascript help is to append the search query with "mdc" to ensure the top results come from there. Also if you want a book, it's hard to beat Douglas Crockford's Javascript The Good Parts; a tiny book which - ironically - spends most of its time covering bugs and language features of javascript that you should absolutely avoid to fall into the proverbial pit of success.

Javascript the Good Parts

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+1 for recommending Crockford's book. – Marlon Jul 5 '11 at 13:42
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perfect answer I was looking for. – Johnny Quest Jul 5 '11 at 13:56
+1 for falling into the proverbial pit of success. If only work were so easy. – Neil Jul 5 '11 at 15:12
up vote 8 down vote

Read Eloquent Javascript

As for learning jQuery, don't start with it (and preferably avoid it, just use a DOM shim). Learn the DOM. Preferably from the MDC

You can also browser the MDN Learn section.

My answer to another recent question has good overview of javascript learning resources.

As for jQuery if you must learn it then read their documentation and tutorials.

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excellent answer as well, can't mark up, otherwise I would – Johnny Quest Jul 5 '11 at 13:57
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Can you elaborate on "DOM3 shim"? – pthesis Jul 5 '11 at 19:01
@pthesis Flow has made a weak attempt at a DOM3 shim. It's the same as a CSS3, HTML5 and ES5 shim. It makes older browser standards compliant. Rather then using a library for browser compliance we just patch older browser to be standards compliant and use the standards. Shamefully a full DOM3 shim doesn't exist yet, I might write one. – Raynos Jul 5 '11 at 19:10
Looks interesting. Bookmarked for future glancing so I can recommend it if necessary – mplungjan Jul 6 '11 at 5:23
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I strongly agree. It can get annoying the people who "want to learn jQuery" without ever trying to properly learn the underlying language... – Trezoid Jul 6 '11 at 12:34
up vote 2 down vote

Tizag's JavaScript tutorial is what got me started with JavaScript. It's very well explained, easy to follow and will teach you most of the stuff you need to move on to jQuery. As mentioned earlier, jQuery's own documentation is gold.

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up vote 1 down vote

Below are two solid links to Javascript tutorials. Also breaks much of it into digestible chunks, plus its free!

http://www.tizag.com/javascriptT/

http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/bridge/1998/res/javascript/javascript-tutorial.html

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up vote 1 down vote

I've found Bucky's Javascript video tutorials at http://www.thenewboston.com to be quite informative and amusing. From there, I'd suggest going directly to the jQuery documentation page.

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up vote 0 down vote

There is a great set of screencasts at http://learn.appendto.com/. The lessons go from basic Javascript all the way to it's more advanced aspects and all the examples are motivated by jQuery.

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up vote -1 down vote

The W3Schools site has this example-based tutorial where you can learn the basics of JS sytax. The same site has a jQuery tutorial, as well.

The best jQuery book I've read is jQuery in Action, by Bear Biebault and Yehuda Katz. It delves into the core jQuery libraries to give you a solid foundation, before moving into the jQuery UI libraires to give you some concrete examples on interface and interaction design.

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-1 for W3Schools. It's horrible reference full of bad code! You even mis quoted them as W3CSchools as if W3Schools is affialated with W3C shame on you! – Raynos Jul 5 '11 at 13:47
Not going to vote you down but yes, w3Schools is not a very good resource. They were one of the first online and are therefore ranked highly but their code is very much centered on "how-do-I" and rarely if ever mentions best practices. Responsible for a lot of the really bad copypasta javascript on the internet. – George Mauer Jul 5 '11 at 16:07
Another -1 for W3Schools. Don't even go there. – kevin cline Jul 5 '11 at 20:30
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w3schools should have a warning: Do not read if you are a newb. You need to have a good understanding of JS, CSS and HTML to see where they are wrong so you can ignore the mistakes. Please visit w3fools.com to see what I mean – mplungjan Jul 6 '11 at 5:22

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