Ask HN: How do I learn JavaScript?

After about a year of building a few larger web apps to get my base working knowledge down I am competent and can build and understand most things. I started reading YDKJS earlier this month and I think it has been the single biggest knowledge accelerator for me. Really understanding core principles has illuminated so many gotchas I ran into over the course of the previous year.

I do believe you need to have worked in JS for a while before jumping into YDKJS though. Having hit some of the idiosyncrasies of the language in the real world makes the book a much richer learning experience.

I've been working my way through the Modern Javascript course at Execute Program, so far so good:

https://www.executeprogram.com/courses/modern-javascript

There was a time when you couldn't get a job with Linux, and you couldn't convince a company to try Linux. So you snuck it in, and in some cases the company never knew (partly because it was so much more reliable than other options that it didn't crash nor reboot).

Sneak ClojureScript in. I know of one shop that trained its JavaScript engineers to use ClojureScript in two weeks. Quite frankly, if one is smart enough to write actual good, safe JavaScript, then one can definitely grok ClojureScript.

> I believe this is possible (and maybe not even hard) as I only mean the language itself

Javascript doesn't exist in a vacuum, and focusing on becoming an expert on just the language is IMHO a misguided effort.

The language is a means to an end and the most useful bits are exactly in the API's that the runtime provide, be they the browser or something like node / react-native.

The advice I often give for "how do I learn ___" is find something you want to make, do what you need to do to arrive at the most basic version that you possible can, then iterate.

If you have someone who can help direct you when you get stuck, or can point out ways things can be vastly better with minimal effort that will be a real boon to your efforts.

Focusing on arcane corners of the language just isn't productive. If you have a mission, you can deal with those when they come up (which due to their arcane nature, will be rarely if at all).

[Eloquent Javascript](https://eloquentjavascript.net/) -- A general intro to JS/Programming.

[Javascript: The Good Parts](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596517748.do) -- Once something makes it into Javascript, it's there forever. While this book only covers up to ES5, it creates a good foundation for things to use and things to avoid. This is especially relevant if you wind up working with older codebases.

[Exploring ES6](https://exploringjs.com/es6/) -- This book will take you from the ES5 land into the world of ES6 (ES 2015). It does NOT cover newer features from ES2016-ES2019, but only a couple of those are major updates.

[Javascript Allonge](https://leanpub.com/javascriptallongesix/read) -- A nice, soft introduction to functional JS concepts.

[You don't know JS](https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS/blob/2nd-ed/READM...) -- an overview of the language feature by feature. I feel it's a bit too advanced for an introduction on quite a few things though.

I'd avoid Javascript: The Definitive Guide. It doesn't do a great job of distinguishing between the good and bad parts of the language and some examples aren't best practice anymore. Maybe they'll get around to creating a 7th edition one day that'll be worth reading. Likewise, I'd avoid reading the spec until you've worked with the language for a while. It's not light reading. I'd start with the 5.1 edition because it's much easier to approach (and much smaller at only around 250 pages). Once you've read that, it'll make reading the newer specs much easier (ES2019 spec is over 3x as long).