A climber on a snowy mountain under a swirling skyscape of stars

From it’s extremely humble beginnings - the original specification was created in just 10 days in May 1995 by Brendan Eich - JavaScript has become a top-tier programming language, equally at home on the browser as it is on embedded devices.

The popularity of JavaScript has spawned a vast and confusing array of related technologies, knowledge of which can quickly overwhelm the new coder. For this reason - and because its best to start with the basics - this reading list concentrates on pure JavaScript as it is available today, including the latest, powerful enhancements.

You may notice that unlike the other primary reading lists in this series, this reading list is not yet described as “complete”. That’s because JavaScript is enormous: it will take me a few more years to cover the subject in depth. In it’s current state, this reading list functions as a useful and rapidly growing introduction.

Prerequisites: The HTML and CSS reading lists

Estimated Time: 20 hours

  1. Introduction
  2. Fundamentals
  3. Variables, Constants & Arrays
  4. Selectors
  5. Operands & Operators
  6. Functions
  7. Loops
  8. Math
  9. DOM Manipulation
  10. Strings
  11. Scrolling Effects
  12. Multimedia
  13. Fullscreen, Dialog & Speech APIs
  14. Canvas API
  15. Web Animations API

Photograph by mxinglight, used under a Creative Commons license.

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