Introduction

So you want to unlock the power of jQuery to make the web a better place? Awesome, but there are a few things you should know about JavaScript first.

Introduced at the dawn of the web, JavaScript is a powerful and expressive language that runs inside the browser in conjunction with HTML and CSS. Based on an open standard called ECMAScript, JavaScript has quickly become the "programming language of the web". All the power of jQuery is accessed via JavaScript, so needless to say, it's an important language to learn. Having a basic knowledge of JavaScript will go a long way in understanding, structuring and debugging your code.

This guide covers the foundational concepts of JavaScript, as well as frequent pitfalls developers fall into during their first foray into the language. When possible, we'll relate the JavaScript you learn here to how it's applied in jQuery.

If you have experience with other programming languages, good for you! If not, don't worry. We'll take it slow and teach you everything you need to know to unlock the power of jQuery with JavaScript.

Table of Contents

• Getting Started
• Running Code
• Syntax Basics
• Types
• Operators
• Conditional Code
• Loops
• Reserved Words
• Arrays
• Objects
• Functions
• Testing Type
• The “this” Keyword
• Scope
• Closures