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Hey Folks,

I know a fair bit of PHP, but I seem to lack knowledge in such things as SOAP, XML-RPC, Javascript and AJAX. I’ve never really used Javascript as I’ve never found a practical use for it. Now I understand it can be used for AJAX and what not.

It’s embarrassing for my Resume 😛

Does anyone have any good resources for me to learn from?

If there was one resource I had to point to it’s probably this.

I’ve been following his blog for ages now, but it’s the screencasts that really inspired me to learn javascript.  And just going through the old posts you find a ton of good code examples.  Heck, I even bought his book.

Thanks Inparo, I’ve been looking through the archives and Javascript doesn’t seem as hard as I made it out to be.

In today’s “world”, I suggest you learn jQuery or a similar library - jQuery is so much more resourceful than native javascript.

I suggest investing a few quid in a book or two, I read the excellent jQuery in Action and it helped tremedously.

http://www.manning.com/affiliate/idevaffiliate.php?id=648_93

In today’s “world”, I suggest you learn jQuery or a similar library - jQuery is so much more resourceful than native javascript.

This is a no-no! Learning Jquery without learning the basics of Javascript would be like learning CodeIgniter without learning the basics of PHP. Knowing the basics of a language is absolutely fundamental before relying on a framework.

I was just about to reply with the same message as “Too Pixel”.

Any book recommendations? I’m looking at the Sitepoint “Simply Javascript” book, but it’s quite a lot at £26

O’reilly is proposing some online books at low costs. They have sure something around Javascript basics. Check it here: http://safari.oreilly.com/

In today’s “world”, I suggest you learn jQuery or a similar library - jQuery is so much more resourceful than native javascript.

This is a no-no! Learning Jquery without learning the basics of Javascript would be like learning CodeIgniter without learning the basics of PHP. Knowing the basics of a language is absolutely fundamental before relying on a framework.

I think that what he was referring to is don’t learn how to do the same thing in jQuery and in native JavaScript. jQuery makes a lot of things simpler, especially with DOM manipulation, effects, events, etc. But you still have to learn the basics behind JS and the more advanced stuff (OOPing) as well 😊

I see your points, but the basics of javascript don’t require a book to learn. http://www.w3schools.com have a great javascript tutorial to get you started. Plus the syntax is a lot like PHP’s, so it wont be hard to learn at all.

This is one of the undisputed JS masters on the planet Douglas Crawford

Click Javascript on the top right.

I recommend all of his videos.  Don’t take my word for it though.  Do a search on the Internet for Doug or Douglas Crawford.

Randy

Like Randy said, Doug is pretty awesome and his first 4 videos help alot, also, he has stated that “all Javascript books suck”. But unlike what Jemgames said, JS isn’t that much like PHP at all, only very superficially. The real cool stuff about Javascript, like closures and prototypal objects, make it alot different from other C-like languages.It’s really closer to Lisp.