Please apologize my off-topic question, I hope it's still a tiny bit on-topic and I'll get great answers, as usual ;-)

I want to learn Javascript.

Now there are a myriad of tutorials and books out there, and I started with a few, and always given up frustrated.

I already now how to program, I'm familiar with C- and Java-style syntax, and when I read something on Javascript I don't want to be told what a variable is, and how a while and a C-style for loop work.

What I'm looking for is a Javascript introduction for non-dummies who were already exposed to other programming languages. I can write some javascript, but it looks infantile and is hard to maintain - just like in the old BASIC days. Heck I don't even know if Javascript supports closures.

So I'm looking for a book or an online resouce that is a mixture of "Programming Javascript", "Javascript Best Practice", "Javscript Hacks" and "Higher Order Javascript" (think s/Javascript/Perl/g here ;-); something that teaches me to write good, robust Javascript code.

I feel a bit embarrassed asking this because I thought that if I could write good perl code, it shouldn't be hard to do it other languages as well, but it seems I was wrong. At least for me it's not easy.

Update: thank you all for your good replies. I'll take a look at the book reviews of the recommended books, and I already skimmed over the various linked web sites, looks very promising so far.

And yes, i planned to do a project, but for me it's usually "book first", then a project (unless I have a really neat inspiration, which sadly isn't very often).


In reply to [OT] How do I really learn javascript? by moritz

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