Learning JavaScript
Learning JavaScript is both interesting and hard at the same time. It's interesting because it's a nice and powerful language and hard because it has design flaws and unfixed bugs.
There are also adjacent technologies that usually confused with JavaScript, let's make it clear:
- JavaScript - the language itself, also has official but less known name - ECMAScript.
- HTML / XHTML - markup language for creating web pages (there's also CSS).
- DOM (Document Object Model) - Browser JavaScript API for working with web pages.
- AJAX, XHR - Browser JavaScript API to communicate with Server.
Most learning resources mix those technologies. It's ok if the goal is to quickly add some interaction to web page, but it makes it harder to learn more complex stuff.
Big advantage of JavaScript is that it's forgiving - it allows you to start without having good understanding of the language. But if you want to be efficient - you need to know the language itself. To learn how to use it efficiently read one of books below.