This post over on ajaxian today led me over to d’bug, a blog by Brian & Stephanie Reindel. The Ajaxian post points to their recent post “How to Choose a Javascript Framework” which is a brief overview of what to look for in choosing. They don’t endorse a particular framework but rather clue you in on what to look for.

But this article led me to “Mastering Javascript - concept and resource guide“. Holy guacamole. This article is great. It’s very direct and to the point and lists out the main things that you really need to grok to be a javascript bad ass:

  • Access Control
  • Accessible Javascript
  • Closures
  • Classical OOP
  • Concepts in AJAX
  • Memory Leaks
  • Namespaces and Self-invoking Functions
  • JSON and Object Literal Notation
  • Security

Each item has a quick one or two sentence description followed by 3-5 links to deeper resources on each topic. Then, after all this, there’s sections of links to JS articles, tutorials, and publications, Javascript tools, and finally frameworks.
This is going on my list of links for developers getting start with javascript and even if you think you have these bases covered its worth bookmarking it. Terrific stuff!