TL;DR version:
Does anyone know of a book (or web resource - free is definitely preferable!) that will teach JavaScript, not involving stuff I don’t even know, as well as maybe using examples that are real-life relevant? I once thought I heard or saw a JavaScript book that basically taught JavaScript while the whole time helping build a web store, so you’d actually be learning while creating something substantial as well. At least, I thought it was something like this - I could be way off. Anyways, any help or guidance is appreciated!
Full version:
Hi all.
So I’m trying to learn JavaScript and, for a language with “Learn JavaScript in 24 hours!” books that I’ve seen, it’s been quite the battle.
I of course first started online at W3schools. I thought, “Hey it’s free!” but found it to be not enough step by step, just “here’s this method or object and what it does. And now here’s this one.” Nothing really bringing the concepts together to mesh into a “and here’s why you’d use them, to do this.”
Next, I picked up a book called “JavaScript for the World Wide Web (Visual Quickstart Guide).”
I quickly came to see that this book was little more than “and here’s how to do a script that does THIS!” It had very specific scripts you could learn to make, but didn’t go far enough in teaching the basics of how to make your own from scratch.
So I then picked up another book called “Beginning JavaScript Development with DOM Scripting and Ajax: From Novice to Professional.”
This one seemed to go more in-depth but, as I proceed, it’s losing me… I’m getting confused, as it constantly introduces something new and gives an example script that far more often than not includes things I’ve yet to learn, even going so far as to say in a sidebar “Don’t worry about stuff you don’t know yet.” Well, that’s great and all, but I want to be able to look at a script and follow along and understand what is happening throughout. It’s like trying to teach an elementary school child English and, instead of using “See spot run” and building from there, I feel like I’m getting the equivalent of “Spot exacerbated his animosity with inferior JavaScript tutorials” - something that a kid just wouldn’t comprehend (Yes, I know I’m equating my JavaScript knowledge to that of a child learning to read, but that’s how I feel!).
Furthermore, in this same book, the examples are a whole lot of nonsense stuff. I’ve often found myself pausing and - as the author demonstrates how to display which Beatle played which instrument using arrays - trying to think “now how would this be applicable in real-life?” I’ve often come to think of an example after a bit of meditation, but I’m at the DOM section of the book, and modifying DOM elements, nodes, etc., and the combination of material I haven’t learned yet mixed with nonsense examples is leaving me clueless.
I am a bit embarrassed, as I know JavaScript is supposed to be the easiest web language to learn, and I want to learn other ones as well after learning JavaScript as a base for the others. But I don’t understand why I’m having so much trouble here.
Does anyone know of a book (or web resource - free is definitely preferable!) that will teach JavaScript, not involving stuff I don’t even know, as well as maybe using examples that are real-life relevant? I once thought I heard or saw a JavaScript book that basically taught JavaScript while the whole time helping build a web store, so you’d actually be learning while creating something substantial as well. At least, I thought it was something like this - I could be way off. Anyways, any help or guidance is appreciated!
Thanks in advance. 
[SIZE=“1”]PS - I did look at the resource Sticky, but those are more along the lines of W3Schools, where it’s just as I described it above…[/SIZE]
