With any programming language, the learning journey is seemingly an endless one. Because I don’t have a computer sciences background, I feel I’ll always struggle to keep my JavaScript abilities up to par.
Over the last year or so I’ve stumbled across a number of useful resources that I think are worth mentioning here. Many of these are not for the faint of heart. Some pretty heavy stuff often geared towards advanced JavaScript developers and front-end engineers.
JSMag
JSMag is a monthly JavaScript e-magazine in PDF format that “aims to brings you quality JavaScript content to educate, motivate and inspire you in your work with JavaScript.” You have the option to purchase individual issues for $4.99 US per issue, or subscribe to 12 issues for a small savings.
The great thing is, you can create a log-in that will subscribe you to their notifications for new issues. The notifications you get will list the table of contents for each new issue. This gives you the opportunity to review the main topics before committing to a purchase.
JavaScript Weekly
JavaScript Weekly is a “free, once–weekly e-mail round-up of JavaScript news and articles” that will give you “top JavaScript news and releases without browsing about all day.” They boast some positive testimonials from some industry leaders.
From the issues I’ve seen, there have been some nice links and articles featured, so worth checking out.
yayQuery Podcast
The yayQuery podcast is a somewhat sparsely-broadcast jQuery podcast usually hosted by four top JavaScript personalities: Paul Irish, Rebecca Murphey, Alex Sexton, and Adam J. Sontag.
The podcast is quite funny and occasionally borders on the bizarre. They always seem to have tons of JavaScript- and jQuery-based news and tidbits that I’m sure any front-end developers will enjoy.
CancelBubble
CancelBubble is a web design news site curated by Matt Hickerson. Yes, there are way too many “design news” sites. But I always find Matt’s stuff on CancelBubble (as well as on his Twitter account) are unique and usually geared towards the type of stuff front-end engineers would be interested in.
Currently, CancelBubble is one of the default tabs that opens each time I load Chrome — because I always like to see what’s newly posted without having to check my RSS feed.
Ugly JS
Ugly JS is “a place for ugly, silly, or just-plain-crap JavaScript.” The project seems to be created/curated by Mathias Bynens and/or James Padolsey.
It’s a nice little resource to check out once in a while to see what top JavaScript developers consider bad code. There’s also a Twitter account to follow and you can contribute via GitHub.
Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja
Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja is an upcoming book by jQuery creator John Resig and Bear Bibeault. Resig has written another book but this one seems to be somewhat more highly anticipated.
The book “reveals the inside know-how of the elite JavaScript programmers. Written to be accessible to JavaScript developers with intermediate-level skills, this book will give you the knowledge you need to create a cross-browser JavaScript library from the ground up.”
It’s slated for release in March of 2012 and you can review the first chapter free on the Manning Publications Inc. page for the book.
I just hope the word “ninja” is as hip in 6 months as it seems to be now.
Hidden Features of JavaScript
Hidden Features of JavaScript is a post on Stack Overflow that has a number of interesting little JavaScript tidbits that almost anyone can learn something from.
Stack Overflow has a number of these lengthy, everybody-and-their-dog-contributes type of posts, and this is one worth checking out.
Conclusion
I don’t personally warrant or guarantee the information in any of these resources is necessarily accurate and constitutes “best practices”, but I have found some useful stuff in all of the above resources (except of course the book, which hasn’t been released yet). So use at your own risk and please comment if you know of any other interesting or unique sources for taking your JavaScript skills to the next level.
Thanks for the resources! :)
Thanks for the list – I find dailyJS (http://dailyjs.com/) quite informative as well.
Great list, thanks
Thank you so much for including jsmag in this impressive list! :)
Thank you very much for the useful stuff.
Great resource! thanks!
Nice place to get more on java scripting! this is more good for me as a beginner designer! thanks :)
Great stuff :) thanks for sharing!
That is super information! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for sharing this information, we use your blog as resource for some projects.