Someone just asked me about how to get started with learning how to write javascript well. For a lot of people who are programmers - both hard core architects and part-time hackers - javascript represents a black hole conundrum. There are a lot of things about the language that just make it un-fun to pick up. Mostly these things are pitfalls of the environment in which the script runs (browsers) and that, until recently, there wasn’t a lot of community effort put into coding standards and frameworks.

That’s changed a bit, but it doesn’t change the fact that Javascipt has a lot of eccentricities. It’s worth noting that I’m planning on kicking off some javascript workshops/siminars in the near future (hopefully early October) that span the range of “what is this stuff and what do I do with it” aimed at people who might not even know how to program, all the way up to drag and drop, ajax, and all the really cool stuff.
So here are some resources you might use to get yourself rolling.

http://www.w3schools.com/
This site is an excellent resource that I refer to often. It has details on html, xml, css, javascript, php, and more. Almost every topic include a tutorial, working examples you can play with, and, where applicable, how different browsers support different features. Their javascirpt tutorial is exceptionally thorough and does a great job of introducing concepts with examples and documentation. It doesn’t do a great job of helping you connect the dots or even discuss programming cleanly and elegantly, but as far as the syntax and functionality is concerned, it’s an awesome resource.

Bootcamp tutorial
I blogged about this a month or so ago. This quick walkthrough is thin on documentation but it gives you an overview of the syntax in something you can skim through in about 5 minutes.

Prototype Guides
I’m a big fan of Prototype, but understanding what to do with it took me a month or two (and I still don’t use it to it’s full potential). There are, thankfully, numerous resources out there for this awesome framework.

Particletree’s quick guide
Particle tree is a group of developers who have numerous open source libraries that are really slick. They have a quick tutorial on getting started with Prototype that covers mostly just the shortcuts that Prototype offers.

Encytemedia’s Prototype Event Tutorial
This blog often features wonderful morsels of education. Here they cover the event handling functionality in Prototype which is really easy to use and you’ll use it a LOT.

Encytemedia’s Prototype Enumerable and Hash Tutorial
This is slightly more advanced stuff, but it’s an awesome tutorial on how to handle data types that Prototype offers that javascirpt natively either doesn’t or doesn’t offer well.

Encytemedia’s Prototype Inheritance Madness Tutorial
Another chunk of somewhat advanced stuff. This is very useful if you’re going to write extendable javascript.

Here’s a big roundup of numerous Prototype how-tos: http://prototypedoc.com/

And the Prototype documentation itself (version 1.4, though 1.5 is out).

Finally, I recommend reading posts here, checking out the libraries I use and the ones I’ve authored for examples of my writing style (which should be taken with a grain of salt; there are better programmers out there than I).

Go dig through these libraries and understand how they do what they do. Hopefully our classes/workshops this fall will also be helpful.

If you have any code you’d like me to look at, don’t hesitate to ping me.

-Aaron