Book description
What will you learn from this book?
This brain-friendly guide teaches you everything from JavaScript language fundamentals to advanced topics, including objects, functions, and the browser’s document object model. You won’t just be reading—you’ll be playing games, solving puzzles, pondering mysteries, and interacting with JavaScript in ways you never imagined. And you’ll write real code, lots of it, so you can start building your own web applications. Prepare to open your mind as you learn [and nail] key topics including:
- The inner details of JavaScript
- How JavaScript works with the browser
- The secrets of JavaScript types
- Using arrays
- The power of functions
- How to work with objects
- Making use of prototypes
- Understanding closures
- Writing and testing applications
What’s so special about this book?
We think your time is too valuable to waste struggling with new concepts. Using the latest research in cognitive science and learning theory to craft a multi-sensory learning experience, Head First JavaScript Programming uses a visually rich format designed for the way your brain works, not a text-heavy approach that puts you to sleep. This book replaces Head First JavaScript, which is now out of print.
Here's what we do:
We use pictures, because your brain is tuned for visuals, not text. As far as your brain's concerned, a picture really is worth a thousand words. And when text and pictures work together, we embedded the text in the pictures because your brain works more effectively when the text is within the thing the text refers to, as opposed to in a caption or buried in the text somewhere.
We use redundancy, saying the same thing in different ways and with different media types, and multiple senses, to increase the chance that the content gets coded into more than one area of your brain.
We use concepts and pictures in unexpected ways because your brain is tuned for novelty, and we use pictures and ideas with at least some emotional content, because your brain is more likely to remember when you feel something.
We use a personalized, conversational style, because your brain is tuned to pay more attention when it believes you're in a conversation than if it thinks you're passively listening to a presentation.
We include many activities, because your brain is tuned to learn and remember more when you do things than when you read about things. And we make the exercises challenging-yet-do-able, because that's what most people prefer.
We use multiple learning styles, because you might prefer step-by-step procedures, while someone else wants to understand the big picture first, and someone else just wants to see an example. But regardless of your own learning preference, everyone benefits from seeing the same content represented in multiple ways.
We include content for both sides of your brain, because the more of your brain you engage, the more likely you are to learn and remember, and the longer you can stay focused. Since working one side of the brain often means giving the other side a chance to rest, you can be more productive at learning for a longer period of time.
We include challenges by asking questions that don't always have a straight answer, because your brain is tuned to learn and remember when it has to work at something.
Finally, we use people in our stories, examples, and pictures, because, well, you're a person. Your brain pays more attention to people than to things.
Both. I'm a huge proponent of Javascript learning resources that start with ES6, but at an actual job it's very likely that you'll encounter legacy code written in ES5, so it's important to have an understanding of it and how it differs from ES6[7,8, etc] and the most import thing for a beginner to learn is just the fundamentals of programming. The head first series is a really great resource for teaching Javascript to a beginner [there's also Head First HTML5 Programming: Building Web Apps with JavaScript].
Some really good Udemy courses for Javascript/Web dev are
//www.udemy.com/modern-javascript/ and //www.udemy.com/the-complete-web-developer-in-2018
some good free resources are -
Practical Javascript on //watchandcode.com
//www.theodinproject.com/courses
//www.freecodecamp.org/
//github.com/P1xt/p1xt-guides/blob/master/job-ready-javascript-edition-2.0.md
//github.com/P1xt/p1xt-guides/blob/master/wd-cs.md
//github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS
//eloquentjavascript.net/Eloquent_JavaScript.pdf
//developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript
//addyosmani.com/resources/essentialjsdesignpatterns/book/