Javascript for Programmers

This screencast was rushed, entry-level, and disorganized. Given the level of professionalism and production value being generated by sites like Peepcode, TekPub, and Code School, this series is very sub-par. I wouldn't recommend it even if it were free.

Have asked for a refund.

The presenter is bad at explaining things. One might stop there. Very-first-practice-take-quality, uninspired, badly organized, overly rushed, amateur-hour crap! The presenter has little passion or talent for teaching and has a truly irritating verbal style (without even mentioning the snapping and the clapping). The basics are laborious to watch and some of the best, most unique features of javascript are not well illuminated. Topics are presented out of order. Too much material is repeated in overlapping presentations. Wait, no, they're badly illuminated in the wrong order. Did I say badly organized? At one point a video, which should *explain* the tricky concept, instead runs through examples and tells you to "work through your confusion". Why am I paying you? The slides/overlays used in the presentation are decent, but have obvious errors. Bullet points are centered rather than left-justified, making them harder to read. The course demo files are useful, but woefully incomplete, too brief, and only barely commented. Too bad, really: the ingredients of a great "for programmers" course are here, but the execution is simply awful. Is there value here? Yes. Is it worth the pain to get it? No, see the links below. That this course is listed at $195 is a sick joke, or more likely a marketing gimmick to make the AppSumo discount look great. It worked, I guess. Even at the AppSumo discount price of $49, I'm still pissed enough to go get a refund. Superior and free: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/JavaScript/Guide see also: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4527488/what-is-the-best-online-free-javascript-tutorial (note: eloquent javascript is available online) If you want to spend some money after all that, "Pragmatic Guide to Javascript" comes in a digital edition for a mere $13 on the pragprog site.

I got this course at a discount via AppSumo. I was highly disappointed even at the significantly discounted price. If I had paid full price I would probably be enraged.

This course is helpful as a supplement to hacking things together in Javascript on your own, especially for experienced programmers. As advertised, the presenter doesn't waste time on basic concepts that any coder with even a little bit of experience should already know. That being said, there are many times when he seems to equate "not wasting time" with "speaking very quickly" and "showing slides for under five seconds". The whole thing could be greatly improved if he would have added a pause or two in between words, and not presented an entire slides' worth of code for very short periods of time. Be prepared to watch some of the videos three or four times to catch everything he's saying.