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Professional JavaScript for Web Developers (Wrox Professional Guides)

Nicholas C. Zakas · 2 HN comments
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Amazon Summary
Dispels the myth that JavaScript is a "baby" language and demonstrates why it is the scripting language of choice used in the design of millions of Web pages and server-side applications Quickly covers JavaScript basics and then moves on to more advanced topics such as object-oriented programming, XML, Web services, and remote scripting Addresses the many issues that Web application developers face, including internationalization, security, privacy, optimization, intellectual property issues, and obfuscation Builds on the reader's basic understanding of HTML, CSS, and the Web in general This book is also available as part of the 4-book JavaScript and Ajax Wrox Box (ISBN: 0470227818). This 4-book set includes: Professional JavaScript for Web Developers (ISBN: 0764579088) Professional Ajax 2nd edition (ISBN: 0470109491) Professional Web 2.0 Programming (ISBN: 0470087889) Professional Rich Internet Applications: Ajax and Beyond (ISBN: 0470082801)
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The only advice I can give is to share my story.

I started my son at five with MIT's Scratch [1] followed up by Lego Mindstorms [2].

I then created a text adventure engine [3] that could run adventures written in a very simple Lua based DSL so he could make a simple text game [4]. Mom helped with spelling and grammar and I suggested a puzzle but he wrote the adventure himself.

Then I transitioned him to Lua on the iPad with Codea [5] and he (with a little help from me) made a game called StarFighter [6].

I choose Lua because it is a great intro language. Very simple with minimalistic syntax, few concepts, few primitives, few keywords, dynamically-typed / garbage collected, variable arity, no real gotchas, good tool support, great speed, the ability to access a key in a hash either using bracket or dotted notation, and one of the best programming books for any language (PiL).

But it also scales well; closures, first-class / true anonymous functions, metatables / metamethods, nice simple API for talking between script and C, tail-call optimization, coroutines, short circuiting operators.

And, the path from Lua to JavaScript is very straightforward. In fact I'd say that mastery of Lua would make you a mid-level JS programmer right out of the box...

The next step was JavaScript and ImpactJS [7]. I got him two books [8][9] and he loved them.

He is now doing HTML/CSS/JS and is in the middle of a fantastic book called Pro Javascript [10]. Once he is done with that book I am going to consider him on his own...

But just to give you an idea; he is 11 now and I am learning Scala for work. He's been watching videos with me and I paused it and ask questions and then I asked him where he thinks the presenter is going to go. He ran to his Ubuntu desktop and apt-get'ed Scala and cranked up a REPL session and showed me; he was correct!

----

[1]: http://scratch.mit.edu/

[2]: http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/default.aspx

[3]: https://github.com/shawndumas/adventure.lua

[4]: https://github.com/shawndumas/adventure.lua/blob/master/theT...

[5]: http://twolivesleft.com/Codea/

[6]: https://gist.github.com/shawndumas/2762088

[7]: http://impactjs.com/

[8]: http://www.amazon.com/HTML5-Game-Development-ImpactJS-Cielen...

[9]: http://www.amazon.com/Building-HTML5-Games-ImpactJS-Introduc...

[10]: http://www.amazon.com/Professional-JavaScript-Developers-Wro...

Malloc_Leake
Wow, that is fantastic. Your kid is the type of kid I want to help create, one that is self motivated to learn how to do things on their own with computers, and will have a really easy time when college comes around (if they even need it to get a job...).
rfnslyr
You're raising the coolest kid on earth. I wish I had the knowledge to implement an idea when I was young. He's going to think of something awesome along the way and have the skills to get it done. It'd be great if he had a github repo we could follow.
marpstar
This is awesome. My girlfriend and I were just talking yesterday about our 2-year-old and how I want to write games with him once he's old enough.

I begged my parents for LEGO Mindstorms when I was a kid but we couldn't afford it. I'm hoping that he'll be as interested in learning to code as I was when I was young.

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