Learn JavaScript
by Mark Myers
Category: Computers

I found JavaScript books so frustrating, I decided to write my own. The authors of JavaScript books are probably some of the brightest people around. And maybe that's the problem. Maybe they don't know how to relate to those of us who may sometimes struggle to learn. My sister is a wonderful dancer. I dance like Bill Gates. She says, "C'mon, dancing is easy!" Yeah, for her, but not for Bill and me. She'll never teach me to dance until she understands that dancing isn't easy for me. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced coder doesn't matter. Plenty of veterans have told me, "I wish someone had used this approach to teach me [HTML, PHP, jQuery, C#, Ruby, Java, Python-fill in the blank]." Experienced or not, you'll probably like my book if you find other books too dense, too technical, and too unsympathetic to the learner's needs. What you'll especially like, I think, is that the book is just the tip of the iceberg. The larger part is the abundance of interactive exercises that encourage you to practice, practice, practice. You'll agree, I think, that without practice, a coding student might as well be reading a novel. One caveat: If you're an older programmer who has established ways of doing things, you may get bent out of shape by my insistence that you do some things that aren't habitual for you. If you think this might be a problem, please try the free sample of the book before you buy it. Then do a few of the interactive exercises. You'll soon know whether you can tolerate being pushed around by me. Here's what's different about my book: Testing showed that books and courses load up the reader with far too much information at a time. So I divide up the information into little chunks that won't overwhelm anyone. A book on coding doesn't have to be written in impenetrable legalese. It can actually be human-readable. My book is. Most people learn best through examples, so I provide plenty of them. Most important, before you have a chance to forget what you've read in the book, I ask you to fire up your desktop or laptop (not your mobile device) and head over to my website, where you run a set of interactive exercises, practicing everything you've learned-until you're sure you've mastered it. Readers tell me they often start the exercises thinking they know the material cold. and quickly find out they don't. The automated exercise manager keeps you at it until your overconfidence becomes real confidence-confidence that's based on your excellent performance. There are 1,750 exercises in all. They're all interactive, with an automated answer-checker that corrects your missteps and points you in the right direction when you stumble. And they're all free. Readers tell me the combination of book and interactive exercises is involving, fun, frustration-free, addictive, confidence-building, and...well, read the reviews. Become fluent in all the JavaScript fundamentals, with interactive practice. Display alert messages to the user Gather information through prompts Manipulate variables Build statements Do math Use operators Concatenate text Run routines based on conditions Compare values Work with arrays Run automated routines Display custom elements on the webpage Generate random numbers Manipulate decimals Round numbers Create loops Use functions Find the current date and time Measure time intervals Create a timer Respond to the user's actions Swap images Control colors on the webpage Change any element on the webpage Improvise new HTML markup on the fly Use the webpage DOM structure Insert comments Situate scripts effectively