Learning Javascript

[Doug Nelson]

I'd like to see a discussion of the best way for a non-programmer to learn Javascript. I've seen the "for Dummies" type books, and I've seen the "read existing scripts and edit them to see what that does" advice, but they all presuppose some previous experience with some sort of other language, even if that language is just HTML or CSS (one would think no one had ever considered teaching JS for anything other than building websites).

[Frank Lopes]

The "tried and true" way that many JavaScript coders learned the language, has been by... stealing...

I don't mean they take code and call it their own, but instead, when they come across something interesting, they take a look at the source code of the page and try to "reverse engineer" the code to see how it did what it did.

This website has a collection of articles specifically written for people with almost no coding experience.

Based on my experience, I would say it will be extremely difficult learning JavaScript for the web without knowing HTML Let's not forget that JavaScript was invented to work with and make HTML more "interactive".

Sure JavaScript is used in more than just web pages, but I've never come across anyone that took that road without knowing its basics on the web.

Originally Posted by Doug Nelson

I'd like to see a discussion of the best way for a non-programmer to learn Javascript. I've seen the "for Dummies" type books, and I've seen the "read existing scripts and edit them to see what that does" advice, but they all presuppose some previous experience with some sort of other language, even if that language is just HTML or CSS (one would think no one had ever considered teaching JS for anything other than building websites).

[Doug Nelson]

"Reverse engineer" implies some experience to draw upon. Without experience you have no context. It would be like translating a page in a foreign language with no dictionary or other samples.

And perhaps a Photoshop Scripting forum might be a good place to teach Javascript sans web kruft?

[Dave.Cox]

Photoshop scripting is sort of a specialized area of javascripting, with its own additional commands and rules to contend with. I don't really think that would be a good place for a novice to get started. I learned the basics of javascripting from O'Reillys book on Javascript. It does a very good job of starting with the bare bones of javascripting, and why it works.