I did one of these for Ruby, and thought that now I’m concentrating on Javascript this would be a good time to do a similar post.

For complete beginners I recommend:

First of all you should learn HTML and CSS.

• Codecademy - If you’re going to use Codecademy, don’t start and stop, it makes it way more difficult. You can’t restart without making a new account annoyingly. You’ll find later that it provides a bit too much hand holding, but for someone completely green to coding and to Javascript I’d be tempted to say it’s the best place to start. Instant, well formatted feedback along with your tuition is hard to beat.

• JS for Cats - Very cute and pretty straightforward, though I did this after I’d been learning Javascript for a while, YMMV.

• Javascript Road Trip: Part 1 - I have mixed feelings about Code School but that’s rarely their fault. When they pitch things as for beginners they are generally really easy to follow and digest. They also have really catchy theme tunes and if you follow this course all the way through you may be singing it for months to come, I still have the jQuery theme tune in my head.

• Javascript Fundamentals: development for absolute beginners - I watched a few of these videoes to recap when I had abandoned codecademy for long enough for it to affect my memory of certain Javascript syntax. Easy to follow.

If you’re a beginner or are a coder new to Javascript, and you don’t mind buying a book:

Learn Javascript Properly - This is a more holistic experience, as it includes stand alone projects and if you’re a fan of reddit and other social networks people often have study groups you can join.

If you’re an intermediate or advanced beginner Javascript developer:

Eloquent Javascript - I’ve been trying to work through this on the tube on the way into my course and it was fine for the first few chapters, but as I’ve now hit a project chapter I’ll have to swap to another book. I’ll say that reading coding books on the tube is probably bad practice, as I should be typing out all the examples, but I wanted to see what the fuss was about and fit in some more Vanilla Javascript to my day.

A re-introduction to Javascript - I think I may swap to reading this on the tube, though I haven’t used it much it looks like it covers a lot of the core advanced topics that things like Codecademy skim over.

Rebecca Murphey’s JS Assessment - ‘Am I A Good Developer?’ is a topic on every developers’ mind, so what better way to put your mind to rest (and work!) than with a set of tests designed by one of the best Javascript developers out there?

Codewars - More skill testing, and a friendlier interface for those of you not yet comfortable with git and the command line.

Crockford’s Good Parts also has to be mentioned here, but I haven’t yet read it I’m assured by the mentors at Founders and Coders, as well as some of the students on my course that it is worth reading.

Once you’re at this point, it’s all about keeping the faith and working as hard as you’re able to not to let imposter syndrome and seemingly unsquashable bugs get you down. Here’s a talk from Angelina Fabbro that’s inspiring and encouraging:

This list is a lot shorter than my Ruby list, but this time I think it’s important to have quality over quantity. Maybe I’ll share my many (many, many, many) bookmarks in a better format another time.