Reddit mentions of JavaScript & jQuery: The Missing Manual

Quite frankly, what did you expect? Every one starts somewhere.

http://stackoverflow.com is your friend. It is a great resource and you will be able to find a lot of information there.

Now, in regards to the technologies you want to learn, you need to start with the basics. Javascript is arguably harder than the rest, so I think your focus should lie there. You should be asking questions like:

• What is the document object model? How does it get rendered?
  
• What is the concept of object oriented programming and how does it work?
  
• What makes Javascript such a powerful language?
  
• What is jQuery and how does it make traversing the document object model easier?
  
  After you've learned those basics, you then need to evaluate the trends and topics in your workplace.
  
  
• What are recurring topics?
  
• What are their goals?
  
• Where do you fit in with the team?
  
• What part of their code do they consider the weakest (poorly written/designed)?
  
  Then you can focus on certain things. For instance, if they feel that most of their goals are related to user interface design, you may want to consider learning about more HTML and CSS (arguably the easiest of the three).
  
  However, if they feel like they need to add more functionality to pages and build backend code, you will probably need to learn more Javascript and jQuery. Remember, jQuery is a Javascript library and learning both together is the best route you can take (in my opinion).
  
  Here are a few resources which I used to get a better grasp on certain topics (quite frankly, I never finish books because all of this information is online).
  
  http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-jQuery-The-Missing-Manual/dp/1449399029
  http://www.amazon.com/HTML5-Missing-Manual-Matthew-MacDonald/dp/1449363261
  http://www.amazon.com/CSS3-Missing-David-Sawyer-McFarland/dp/1449325947/
  
  All of the Missing Manual books are fairly well written and will give you a lot of insight on those languages.
  
  However, if you prefer to be taught rather than teaching yourself, some good resources like these may help you:
  
  https://www.codeschool.com/
  https://www.codecademy.com/
  
  Both of these websites are tailored to teaching you to code within your browser. I've found both of them to be excellent.
  
  Some resources which you will want to keep in handy:
  
  http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/the-30-css-selectors-you-must-memorize--net-16048 - Great tutorial on CSS selectors that may prove invaluable when working with CSS.
  
  http://diveintohtml5.info/ - A very well made web page regarding HTML5, its new features, and some other interesting topics.
  
  http://api.jquery.com/ - The documentation for jQuery. I know this can be found easily, but I can't stress enough how useful it will be to have this page open while you are reading through jQuery code.
  
  ...and much more. You will find more information online everywhere. If you feel like you need more information, feel free to PM me.
  
  Remember:
  
  "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" - Albert Einstein
  
  This is only the beginning of your long journey if you choose to stay in the development field. Good luck!
  
  Edit: Thank you so much for gold! If anyone else wants more information, feel free to PM me. I don't have anyone to talk to about web development XD

This may be a little off topic, but since you are starting to learn I wanted to give some advice!

I've been doing HTML/CSS for about 3 years but never touched Javascript/jQuery. Boy, what a mistake. I just bought a book: "JavaScript & jQuery: The Missing Manual" (recommended by someone on here!) and it's so great. There's also some courses on Codecademy :)

js/jq work together to make your website look really fresh and most of the examples you see in this thread will use them. js/jq allow the website to respond to user actions without loading a new page; and this (to me) is one of the biggest signals if a website is "up to date" or not.

I highly recommend starting to learn js and jq.

Bonus: To stay on topic, check out the winners of the Webby awards here! Although many aren't made with simple HTML/CSS there is some serious talent there.

Check out Javascript and jQuery: The Missing Manual. It's got solid step-by-step explanations of it's tutorials.

I suggest learning basic JavaScript, going into depth with jQuery, then, if you're up for some pretty crazy stuff, go into advanced JavaScript.

I highly suggest you buy the Missing Manuals book on Javascript and jQuery. It is the BEST book you can get for learning JavaScript.

Here's the thing;

You can look at learning a programming language like learning a spoken language. You can get by just learning key phrases like "where is bathroom" and the equivalent to limited personal pronouns like document.getElementById().

But to really learn the language, and how it works you have to get into the nuts and bolts. Understand prototype inheritance, what javascript types are beyond string and int, you have to read a book like this.

Having said that, beginner books are great so long as you read with that realization.

I started with O'Reilly | Javascript & jQuery: The Missing Manual and it was good to me. Haven't read it in too long and I'm by no means an expert, but have fond memories.

Some people might sometimes recommend Javascript: The Definitive Guide but that one's really more of a tome or reference book. It's sort of the be-all, end-all of Javascript, but really REALLY not fun to learn from. Very dense and dry.

I've heard really good things about JavaScript and JQuery: Interactive Front-End Web Development. Or you could get the combined HTML, CSS, JS set.

I don't know those first-hand though. I've just heard good things and the design is beautiful. First-hand, I know that JavaScript & jQuery: The Missing Manual is good. I really like The Missing Manual series in general.