More pertinently, will they ever be good enough programmers to use Javascript correctly? I’m a fairly competent programmer and I want to do the right thing whenever I use JS (admittedly rare) but I’m not convinced I have the knowledge to do so. Resources for doing it properly in generic, reusable and sensible ways are thin on the ground; your book not withstanding.

I started with the idea I had for weeding out old tutorials, let’s see what the initial responses will be:
http://www.wait-till-i.com/index.php?p=98

And, yes, you can always stay at my place should we do another meeting like this one. I hope the missus is OK with it. You are not into ginger anyway, right?

If someone doesn’t know what variables or lists are, then they can convert other people and serve as a good example, but they are severely limited in doing so. And they don’t increase the availability of reusable code (or even reusable knowledge).

There’s a lot of programmers out there who are newly interested in Javascript after being discouraged with previous experiences. Things have changed some, but the underlying language still holds a lot of potential to discourage people. There’s a subset of things you Can do in Javascript that makes up the set of things you Should do in Javascript, and figuring out that subset is a hard-won skill when you are on your own. It’s easier now than it used to be, but still not easy.

To see a case of blind- leading- the- blind in Javascript, you might look at this thread—full of programmers who are interested in Javascript, but don’t know what to do with that interest.

As far as making Javascript accessible to non- programmers, I think the key is robust libraries and graceful failure. Up front descriptions don’t work well, because no one wants to read them, but suggestive error messages and attention to misuse (again with correction- suggesting error messages) makes for a much more pleasant experience.

The big problem for me is I am not a programmer. I have never had any training in programming. Well, actually a little but in VB, which I then never used. I do have quite a logical mind and can pick things up though. I reckon I could get a handle on it if I was just left alone for a few weeks with a computer and a good book that tells you how to program. I’m glad you said that about Jeremy Keith’s book, I have pre-ordered it from Amazon.

What I find particularly difficult now is reference documentation. I know that Netscape used to have The manuals, but they seem not to work or to go out of date, or to pretend that the DOM doesn’t exist. A decent and stable online manual together with more friendly, practical documentation along the lines of other major programming languages which didn’t pretend that JavaScript has nothing necessarily to do with Web programming, would be very useful for new people and amateurs like me. The problem is having something authoritative to trump the many dodgy how-to sites.

My three pennys: You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. We might get the CSS guys interested in the effects of DOM Scripting but getting them interested in progamming is another matter. Some will take to it like a duck to water but the rest …

I think the key is robust libraries and graceful failure.

I’ve never been a fan of Javascript libraries. Perhaps for intranet applications they make sense, but you still need to watch the download speed when building websites, and general-purpose libraries usually contain a lot of code you don’t need. That’s also a problem because it makes the code more complex for beginners to alter.

The one off scripts you can include like the ones for making cite attributes proper links for blockquotes are more suitable for introductions. They are small enough both for download time and simplicity for beginners. They aren’t full-blown libraries, perhaps “generic Javascript” is a better name for them?