Project ideas to master JavaScript

Question

This question is the following of my other question here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3707746/cannot-understand-node-js

I decided to learn JavaScript, however and in spite of I learn by doing, I don't find anything I can be doing in order to learn JavaScript.

What projects do you recommend me to start? What cool things can I do to improve my skills from beginning to master? Please don't propose almost impossible projects for a beginner, I'd like to know everything about JS but starting from something not very easy but not very hard.

Answer 1

I recommend start learning the work of DOM en WOM (Document Object Model) and (Window Object Model) Try change html code with your javescript (delete elements, add elements, edit elements). Do the same for attributes. When you understand this you can learn yourself some ajax. With this you got the core of js functionality. If you want to learn more you can start trying to make movable objects or something.

I recommend looking into jQuery aswell when you mastered the javascript language. This is a great javascript library with really good documentation that makes it a lot easier to develop in javascript. http://jquery.com

(I'm assuming you familiar with some kind of php/java or other language that uses things like functions and objects)

As a project you can think of making a new layout for an excising site using javascript to edit the elements. For example change the layout when some button is pressed. http://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp is a great site to do some tutorials.

Answer 2

If you want to learn about JavaScript with the intent of understanding the language itself and nodejs, you should not do anything that has do to with a browser. That will just force you to focus on quirks and silly DOM-things. Even jQuery would be wrong in my opinion as it is a framework for working with the browser.

Write a good old regular command-line program. Write a blackjack-game. If you like maths, solve some project euler problems. If you want to do some async and webby things, screenscape some site for info and print it in the terminal. Or make a tiny website using node as a server.

Really, just do anything, but stay away from browser scripting (unless that is what you want to learn) :)

Answer 3

I learned jQuery a LOT by doing a sort of website builder (drag & drop and so on), without knowing a bit of javascript (other than getElementById and innerHTML). I wasn't happy with performance (jquery 1.1.x afterall) and I started to learn and apply various optimization tips. After few months I realized that I know js at a satisfactory level (I was like Neo: I know Kung Fu!)

As a book, I recommend you Professional Java Script. It covers a lot of topics, starting from basic stuff, going to advanced stuff.