Self teaching resources for Jquery

Question

Hi

I'm a php developer looking to learn jquery, with no Javascript experience.

Ideally, I would like a beginners self teaching guide in a book, that I can use as a reference.

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Here you go: jQuery 1.3 with PHP

Answer 2

One (of many) reasons for the jQuery library being so popular is that the references are incredibly accessible. docs.jquery.com has great getting started guides.

I also find that this slideshow is a great introduction to javascript.

Also, Douglas Crockford has written a great book called "JavaScript: The Good Parts". I recommend the book, and also, this lecture.

Answer 3

Before you dive in to books, try the resources available to you on the web.

For picking up Javascript (which should be done before jQuery), check out the Tutorials over at W3C Schools:

JavaScript Tutorial

And then for jQuery, the jQuery site has a good list of online tutorials that walk you through everything from the basics all the way to writing your own plug-ins:

Tutorials - jQuery JavaScript Library

Answer 4

jQuery in Action - Second Edition
jQuery Docs
JavaScript Tutorials

Answer 5

If you have no JavaScript experience, I would recommend you to learn JavaScript from the ground up, without jQuery first. JavaScript is a pretty advanced language (feature-wise). Frankly speaking, JavaScript is way more advanced than PHP as a programming language.

Thins such as closures, prototypal inheritance, or even object-oriented programming are rarely found in PHP.

First, you should learn the syntax: http://www.w3schools.com/JS/default.asp

Then you can learn about the DOM: https://developer.mozilla.org/En/The_DOM_and_JavaScript

Then you can learn about Unobtrusive JavaScript (to learn about closures and callbacks): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtrusive_JavaScript (at this point it starts to get closer to jQuery)

By this time, the official tutorial will be easy to understand: http://docs.jquery.com/Tutorials:Getting_Started_with_jQuery

Answer 6

Some of the best resources for learning jQuery are on the jQuery website itself, under the documentation and Tutorials sections.

There's also the Learning jQuery website, and also a number of good books that have been published on jQuery, too:

Learning jQuery 1.3
jQuery Cookbook
jQuery in Action
jQuery UI 1.7: The User Interface Library for jQuery

Rick Strahl (a prominent .NET developer) has reviewed some of these books, and those reviews can be found here:

jQuery Books Review

Answer 7

I went from knowing nothing about javascript, to now I'm in a salaried PHP/javascript office job; and I learned most of my javascript/Jquery from one book.

Javascript: The Missing Manual

I still use it in my office sitting on my desk next to my pocket reference guides.

Answer 8

My favorite is "JavaScript: The Good Parts" by Douglas Crockford. Excellent read and gets you started with the best practices in JavaScript (skipping all of the ugly).

Answer 9

I listed a bunch of resources in a previous answer, if that's any help.

I would also re-recommend this book: http://eloquentjavascript.net/contents.html , once you learn the basics of Javascript then I'd recommend looking into jQuery books... if you do jQuery directly you won't know how it all works behind the scenes and you might be a bit spoiled.