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Front end development: where to start? [closed]

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I'm very sorry if that question has been asked already, couldn't find anything closely related though.
By now I've pretty much learned HTML/HTML5, CSS/3, learned using JQuery (not saying there's nowhere to improve, obviously there is). I really want to start learning front-end dev (client MVC, etc). I've started learning backbone.js, but it turns out i'm having difficulties learning it. Am I missing something? I've read "JS: Good Parts" and Javascript Garden is basically my go-to source yet I still get confused.
I'd appreciate any recommendations as to what I should learn/practice first, thanks :)

My favorite answer for that is always - start your own side-project.
Pickup any simple existing application, ToDo list, issue tracker, blog platform, what ever and spend energy to make it done. Host sources on github, search for similar applications to inspire.
You would not believe how many actual questions you would have, by just trying the things out. If you already have good skills with HTML/CSS and JS you'll be able to build something really valuable and learn a lot.
Backbone.js is good, but could be really difficult to start with. Do, some learning curve - implement same simple app in jQuery, then Backbone, then Angular.js. It will give you great client MVC overview.

Two things
Don't quit.
Stackoverflow.
You can read all you want and it will definitely help, but in the end, you'll just have to start, work through it and finish something. Finishing is very important, so I would recommend starting simple, for example, build your own todo with an example on the side and work from there.

Different people have different learning styles, so not all answers you will get will work for you (except GijsJanB's "Don't quit"). Personally, once I am through a tutorial or other documentation, I like to study a real-world system of substantial size. Two that I've looked at and might match your interests are:
Brackets: a Javascript/HTML/CSS editor written entirely in Javascript. Written and maintained by Adobe, open source and available on Github via this link.
Travis-web: the front-end of the Travis-CI continuous integration framework, based on the Ember framework. Written largely in CoffeeScript, not JavaScript proper.

I'd suggest AngularJS (http://angularjs.org/). Why? Because it has a pretty good tutorial section, good documentation AND it's backed by a large company (Google).
But unfortunately, the learning is still up to you ;-)

A free online resource is w3schools, it teaches you back-end too(PhP and mySQL).I really suggest you to learn Angular2, this is a great js framework that most front-end developers use. Always practice,code at least 2 hours a day, make a lot of websites for your portofolio, learn how to make slideshows and animated text, you can even learn how to make a working login page, and a working contact form(a lot of cients want theese stuff). Learn photoshop and illustrator because clients want great design these days.One thing you have to remember is that you never stop learning,if you ever think that you finished learning it emans that you are at the beginning.Good luck and never forget the semicolons :)

Javascript Books for Pure Noob [closed]

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this site has been a great help to me. I am working as a UI designer, and i am very interested in learning Javascript, but i am not able to find a right way to start from. I don't have a programming background.
I need a book for Javascript, which is totally for a Noobs, starting from the fundamentals. I tried reading Douglas Crockford's Javascript the good parts, but i wasn't able to understand much.
Please suggest me some books

Try out this new site:
http://www.codecademy.com
It really will help you get a hang of javascript. It's an interactive way for learning javascript.

If you're looking for a book, I'd recommend O'Reilly's Head First JavaScript. You can get it from their site or cheaper from Amazon.

I started recently using eloquent javascript and it is indeed a good book. Along with that Mozilla Documentation helped. But the best way to understand the language is to use it and see it in action. Ask a friend of yours to introduce you to firebug and how firebug is used to alongside with Javascript debugging. That will help you to get a grasp of how javascript is used to real world. Once you know that you will find that Javascript as a language is really simple, it's applications (and concepts such as AJAX) and it's libraries (jquery) are the ones that are making it really really powerful

Make sure you read Pro JavaScript Techniques. It is concise with a wealth of information.
Then there's the JavaScript: The Definitive Guide. Also make sure you get Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja when it gets published.

References to learn HTML & JS for Non-technical person [closed]

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My Manager wants to learn HTML and JS, and he has no idea of programming. Can you give me any good references from where he can learn?

Do yourself a huge favor: do not use w3schools. A lot of its content has obviously not been updated in around 10 years, and a large portion of the javascript code on it is absolutely attrocious and should not be considered best practice even in a parallel universe.
For more details on this, see http://w3fools.com/ - which also suggests some alternative resources.
That said, I've personally found Mozilla Developer Network to be a very well-written resource, though I'll admit it may not necessarily cater to the greenest of audiences.
For JavaScript as a language, I'd highly recommend picking up Douglas Crockford's book JavaScript: The Good Parts, as it discusses the language while specifically trying to emphasize the good parts of the language while steering you clear of the bad. It's important to remember that while JavaScript looks like Java, its similarities pretty much end there.
EDIT: for JavaScript you may be better off starting with a resource like Eloquent JavaScript as Rebecca pointed out in her answer (for which she gets a +1 from me, and for which I kick myself for forgetting about).
I might also point you towards Rebecca Murphey's jqfundamentals - particularly the first chapter, which also briefly goes through some JavaScript basics, though admittedly it does so quickly and thus shouldn't be your only read. But it's also well-written and should be hopefully easy to understand. (For consumable formats, look here: https://github.com/rmurphey/jqfundamentals/tree/master/book/release)

... non-technical person ... learn HTML+JS ... but no idea of programming.
All I can says is "good luck".
HTML you may get away with, but JS is programming. Can't get away from that fact.
Teach him to program using Javascript if you like, but don't expect to get a non-technical understanding of it, because it is technical.
My suggestion: teach him HTML only to start with. Don't bother even acknowledging that Javascript exists until he's got a good handle on that.
Then teach him CSS. You can't write a web site without it these days, and a lot of what he's going to want to do with Javascript would involve changing element styles anyway, so a good understanding of HTML and CSS is important.
Once he's got that - properly - then, and only then should you consider letting him loose on Javascript.

For people who can get past jargon, a good place to learn HTML and JavaScript is by learning it from the source:
HTML 4.01 Specification (W3C Recommendation 24 December 1999)
HTML 5 Reference - A Web Developer’s Guide to HTML 5 (W3C Editor’s Draft 23 March 2009)
Core JavaScript Guide (Copyright © 2000 Netscape Communications Corp.)
Core JavaScript Reference (Copyright © 2000 Netscape Communications Corp.)

This gets good reviews:
Google: HTML, CSS, and Javascript from the Ground Up

Eloquent JavaScript is a fantastic resource, but I'm with Spudley -- learning JavaScript without some programming background is going to be a long and arduous road. Libraries can flatten some of the learning curve, but the tradeoff is the risk of writing code that "works" in the loosest sense of the word.
JavaScript: The Good Parts is a great book, but it's going to be way over the head of a beginner without programming experience.

The most complete place to learn JavaScript is from the people who make it work: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/JavaScript/Guide
w3schools has JavaScript content, but it's very scarce and doesn't really explain things is much detail.
Mozilla also have HTML Docs for when you want to take the next step. https://developer.mozilla.org/en/HTML

If you have no idea of programming then you can start with classes from Lynda.com as they are easier to follow for beginners. Their Essential HTML and Essential Javascript courses are a good start for those with no prior experience. However, you will have to pay for them.
Tizag.com also has easy to follow tutorials for beginners.
W3C school tutorials is also recommended.
I would advise you to get familiar with HTML and CSS first and then move on to JS.
I am sorry that I couldn't include more links because SO doesn't allow more than one link for new users.

Don't start with W3schools to learn. Here is an alternative for W3schools.
SnoopCode

A Beginners' Guide to Learning JavaScript? [closed]

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There's a few mentions of Javascript newbies getting starting by checking out some of Douglas Crockford's work (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11246/best-resources-to-learn-javascript), but none of his resources seem to be for those looking to learn from the ground up.
Are there any suggestions for complete beginners regarding how best to learn JavaScript?
Personally I have plenty of HTML and CSS experience, and some PHP (which would help learning JS), but for those that don't know any programming language what would you recommend?

I would recommend:
Eloquent JavaScript (interactive tutorial)
A re-introduction to JavaScript
Mozilla JavaScript Guide
Javascript Tutorial for beginners

I have been using the tutorials in Learnable.com from the Sitepoint folks, Lynda.com, and Tutsplus. These are all paid services, but I learn lots from them. The Codecademy Javascript Fundamentals tutorial/class definitely gets a thumbs up. Codecademy is real time, challenging and free.

Code Year also has a great program for ground up learning!

I have been working my way through Codecademy's offerings, specifically, "JavaScript Fundamentals", the "non-track courses" in JavaScript, and, as mentioned above, their current "Code Year."
I am coming at it from the perspective of someone who used to write *nix shell scripts and C and Fortran (yes, yes) code for a living a while back, and who lately has been doing some basic HTML/CSS, so some parts were obvious. Most of it, though, was new to me, since I had pretty much no experience with object-oriented or event-driven programming.
On the whole, I have found it very useful. It can be a bit frustrating getting your answer to a particular exercise to "pass," because the validation process appears to be sensitively dependent on the individual "teacher's" ability to write good checks, but this is only a minor complaint. Mostly, this is not an issue, and the already-posted answers on the forums on the site are quite helpful if you're stuck. Generally, though, doing what you're asked will get you a happy success message, and I really like the interactivity of it all. It's not perfect, of course, but I feel like I'm getting a good introduction to the key points and concepts of JavaScript; enough, at minimum, that I can speak enough of the language to know how to Google/Stackoverflow things more precisely. And really, I feel like I'm getting a lot more than that -- the dumb ideas I've had for little utility scripts are becoming a pleasure to implement.

http://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp
As ground up as it gets.

"Javascript, the good parts" is very good, but you need to have some theoretical background or some serious programming experience to put it to use. It is a bit high-brow. However if you have had programming courses during your education it will be fine.

I have been learning from: http://www.informit.com/library/library.aspx?b=STY_JavaScript_24_hours

I'd say W3Schools is a pretty good tutorial for someone with no programming experience. But as soon as you finish that, start working through Crockford's material, and unlearn all the bad stuff you learnt.
I don't know of any introduction to JavaScript that follow's Crockford's good parts, but he says in the introduction to his book that he'd like to write an introduction to JavaScript at some point, so fingers crossed!

Head First Javascript is an excellent book for beginners. The Head First series does a great job of breaking things down to the basics, but still covering a lot of ground throughout the book.

There are NOW some good interactive tutorials for learning Javascript right from the beginning. If you are fairly new to Computer Programming, try Code Avengers (a site I helped create) or CodeCademy. Both are free and get you to write code right from the beginning.
If you have a some programming experience, try Code School. It has courses for html, css, Javascript and JQuery. However, they do cost about $50 a course. Learners watch fairly entertaining video tutorials then complete programming tasks.
My experience in learning and teaching others to program is that these type of sites can be both and effective and enjoyable way to learn programming. Probably in conjunction with other resources.

Javascript Best Practices [closed]

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What are some good resources to learn best practices for Javascript? I'm mainly concerned about when something should be an object vs. when it should just be tracked in the DOM. Also I would like to better learn how to organize my code so it's easy to unit test.

Seconding Javascript: The Good Parts and Resig's book Secrets of the Javascript Ninja.
Here are some tips for Javascript:
Don't pollute the global namespace (put all functions into objects/closures)
Take a look at YUI, it's a huge codebase with only 2 global objects: YAHOO and YAHOO_config
Use the Module pattern for singletons (http://yuiblog.com/blog/2007/06/12/module-pattern/)
Make your JS as reusable as possible (jQuery plugins, YUI modules, basic JS objects.) Don't write tons of global functions.
Don't forget to var your variables
Use JSlint : http://www.jslint.com/
If you need to save state, it's probably best to use objects instead of the DOM.

I disagree to the "use a framework" statement to some degree. Too many people use frameworks blindly and have little or no understanding of what's going on behind the curtains.

I liked JavaScript:The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford although it's focused entirely on the language and ignores the DOM altogether.

If you don't feel like reading you can watch this video: JavaScript the good parts by Doug Crockford.

Probably the single most important thing is to use a framework, such as jQuery, or prototype, to iron out the differences between browsers, and also make things easier in general.

YUI Theatre has a bunch of videos (some with transcripts) by Steve Souders, Douglas Crockford, John Resig and others on JavaScript, YUI, website performance and other related topics.
There are also very interested google tech talks on Youtube on jQuery and other frameworks.

You can pick up a lot from Pro JavaScript Techniques, and I'm looking forward to Resig's forthcoming Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja.

As an addendum to the Crockford book, you may also want to check out this piece Code Conventions for the Javascript Programming Language. I also have a slightly different suggestion: instead of using a JS library off the bat, why not create your own? You may write a crappy library (as I did), but you'll learn something in the process. You have existing examples you can use as models. Also, to help give you an understanding of JS design patterns, I shall recommend another book, 'Pro Javascript Design Patterns'.