# Essential JavaScript Links
A curated list by Eric Elliott and friends. Suggest links in the comments below.
This is a very exclusive collection of only must-have JavaScript links. I’m only listing my favorite links. Nothing else makes the cut. Feel free to suggest links if you think they’re good enough to make this list.
## Required Reading (Online resources)
* Learn JavaScript Essentials (for all skill levels) – One clear path to JavaScript mastery
* JavaScript Training Sucks 99 out of 100 JS developers lack the skills they need to fill hundreds of thousands of jobs. We can change that.
* The Two Pillars of JavaScript Part 1: Prototypal OO
* The Two Pillars of JavaScript Part 2: Functional Programming
* JavaScript Objects An excellent explanation of inheritance in JavaScript by Kyle Simpson
* Isomorphic JavaScript
* JavaScript Application Architecture on the Road to 2015 – Addy Osmani
* Reactive MVC and the Virtual DOM Great read, even if you’re not a React user.
* Introduction to Reactive Programming
* The General Theory of Reactivity What is all this talk about reactive? Functional? Promises? This is the beginning of a reactive programming bible.
* ES6 Generators A series of blog posts by Kyle Simpson
* Typed JavaScript – Excellent post about the state of typed JavaScript by Axel Rauschmayer
* Taming the Asynchronous Beast with CSP in JavaScript – James Long
* ES6 Modules: The Final Syntax by @rauschma #AMDisDead
## Required Viewing
* [Asynchronous Programming at Netflix](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gawmdhCNy-A) – [Jafar Husain](https://twitter.com/jhusain)
* [David Nolen: Immutability: Putting The Dream Machine To Work](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiFwRtCnxv4) – [David Nolen](https://twitter.com/swannodette)
* [Delivering the Goods](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8W_6xWphtw) Paul Irish on one of the most important but overlooked topics in the development world today – page load times.
## Spec
* [ES5 Spec](http://es5.github.io/) An annotated, hyperlinked version of the ES5 spec
* [ES6 draft](https://people.mozilla.org/~jorendorff/es6-draft.html)
## Books
* [JavaScript for Kids](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00QL616QE?ie=UTF8&camp=213733&creative=393177&creativeASIN=B00QL616QE&linkCode=shr&tag=ericleads-20&linkId=6AOODC27L6URY3K2)
* [Eloquent JavaScript](http://eloquentjavascript.net/)
* [JavaScript: The Good Parts](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596517742?ie=UTF8&camp=213733&creative=393185&creativeASIN=0596517742&linkCode=shr&tag=ericleads-20&linkId=IJKESYSOTWGC27DR)
* [Effective JavaScript](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321812182?ie=UTF8&camp=213733&creative=393185&creativeASIN=0321812182&linkCode=shr&tag=ericleads-20&linkId=JIC63I267I6UDQQZ)
* [Programming JavaScript Applications](http://pjabook.com)
* [JavaScript: The Definitive Guide](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596805527?ie=UTF8&camp=213733&creative=393185&creativeASIN=0596805527&linkCode=shr&tag=ericleads-20&linkId=AENIF5KLRQI3N335)
* [You Don’t Know JS](https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS)
* [Understanding ECMAScript 6](https://leanpub.com/understandinges6/read/) by Nicholas C. Zakas
* [Node.js in Action](http://www.manning.com/cantelon/)
* [The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0670899763?ie=UTF8&camp=213733&creative=393177&creativeASIN=0670899763&linkCode=shr&tag=ericleads-20&linkId=NDUXYQOCMPC47SQI)
## Dev tools & collaboration
* [nvm](https://github.com/creationix/nvm) First install this…
* [Node](http://nodejs.org/) Then install Node (with nvm). You’ll need this even if you’re a front-end dev.
* [npm](https://www.npmjs.com/) Install lots of other things with npm. **The package manager for JavaScript.** Comes with Node.
* [Sublime Text 3](http://www.sublimetext.com/3)
* [Node Inspector](https://github.com/node-inspector/node-inspector) Debug Node code with the Chrome debug tools
* [TraceGL](https://github.com/traceglMPL/tracegl) Powerful runtime analysis of live JavaScript code
* [Tern](http://ternjs.net/) Static analysis in JavaScript
* [JSDoc](http://usejsdoc.org/) – Pair with [Tern](http://ternjs.net/) for static analysis
* [Nitrous.IO](https://www.nitrous.io/join/uJcRo6yQDvs?utm_source=nitrous.io&utm_medium=copypaste&utm_campaign=referral) (Supports live collaboration / pair programming)
* [Slack](http://slack.com) Chat for teams, with GitHub and Google hangouts integration
* For hangouts, just type /hangout in any channel
* [PrettyDiff](http://prettydiff.com/)
* [ES6 Fiddle](http://www.es6fiddle.net/)
## Building
* [Browserify](http://browserify.org/) Bundle modules for the browser.
* [How to use NPM as a Build Tool](http://blog.keithcirkel.co.uk/how-to-use-npm-as-a-build-tool/)
### Lint / Quality checkers
* [JSHint](http://jshint.com/)
* [ESLint](http://eslint.org/)
* [Istanbul](https://github.com/gotwarlost/istanbul) Code coverage reporting
* [tape](https://github.com/substack/tape) and [faucet](https://github.com/substack/faucet) for dead simple unit testing.
### Transpilers
* [6to5](https://github.com/6to5/6to5) (ES6)
* [CoffeeScript](http://coffeescript.org/)
* [Emscripten](http://kripken.github.io/emscripten-site/) (frequently used for C/C++ JavaScript ports)
* [Traceur](https://github.com/google/traceur-compiler) (ES.next)
* [ES6 tools](https://github.com/addyosmani/es6-tools) Addy Osmani’s ES6 Tools list
## JavaScript environments
* [Node.js](http://nodejs.org/) Server side JavaScript and more
* [io.js](https://iojs.org/) – The Node fork
## Libraries
* [es5-shim](https://github.com/es-shims/es5-shim) Stable, production ready.
* [es6-shim](https://github.com/es-shims/es6-shim/) Somewhat stable, but a few things I thought were solid got shifted to ES7.
* [es7-shim](https://www.npmjs.com/package/es7-shim) Experimantal. Use with caution.
* [native-promise-only](https://github.com/getify/native-promise-only) An ECMAScript standard promise polyfill by Kyle Simpson
* [isomorphic-fetch](https://github.com/matthew-andrews/isomorphic-fetch) A [WHATWG fetch](https://fetch.spec.whatwg.org/) standard polyfill
* [jQuery](http://jquery.com/) Yes, [I still use jQuery](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LPaPA30bLUB_publLIMF0RlhdnPx_ePXm7oW02iiT6o/edit#) and so do 61% of the top 100,000 websites – for good reason.
* [Blaze](http://meteor.github.io/blaze/) DOM-diffing isomorphic reactive templates from Meteor
* [RxJS](https://github.com/Reactive-Extensions/RxJS) Reactive extensions for JavaScript. [What’s reactive?](https://medium.com/javascript-scene/the-two-pillars-of-javascript-pt-2-functional-programming-a63aa53a41a4)
* [Moment](http://momentjs.com/docs/) A lightweight JavaScript date library for parsing, validating, manipulating, and formatting dates.
* [Globalize](https://github.com/jquery/globalize) i18n / translate your app for many languages and locations (locales)
* [Express](http://expressjs.com/) The most popular framework for Node
* [Stampit](https://github.com/ericelliott/stampit) Stampit – create objects from reusable, composable behaviors. Prototypal inheritance with stamps.
* [Credential](https://github.com/ericelliott/credential) If you write Node apps with password logins, you need Credential
* [cuid](https://github.com/ericelliott/cuid) GUIDs are broken – use cuid, instead
* [velocity](http://julian.com/research/velocity/) & [Velocity Motion Designer (VMD)](http://julian.com/research/velocity/#vmd) UI animation library
* [json-schema](https://github.com/kriszyp/json-schema) – Great for model validations
## Web Components
* [FIRST](http://addyosmani.com/first/)
* [Polyfills](http://webcomponents.org/polyfills/)
* [HTML Imports](http://webcomponents.org/articles/introduction-to-html-imports/)
* [Custom Elements](http://webcomponents.org/articles/introduction-to-custom-elements/)
* [Templates](http://webcomponents.org/articles/introduction-to-template-element/)
* [Shadow DOM](http://webcomponents.org/articles/introduction-to-shadow-dom/)
* [x-gif](http://geelen.github.io/x-gif/#/http://i.imgur.com/iKXH4E2.gif) This web component wins the internet.
## QA / Deployment / Monitoring / CI
* [PM2](https://github.com/Unitech/pm2) Process monitoring / self repair
* [New Relic](http://newrelic.com/) Deep insights into the performance and health of your production apps
* [Sauce Labs](https://saucelabs.com/) Cross platform web application testing with great collaboration and integration support
* [Travis CI](https://travis-ci.org/) CI, of course
* [Docker](https://www.docker.com/) Run your CI process using the same OS configs as your production systems.
* [Shippable](https://www.shippable.com/) Docker-based hosted build / CI
## Community
* [ES Discuss](https://esdiscuss.org/) The mailing list where all the ECMAScript standard discussion action is.
* [JavaScript on Google+](https://plus.google.com/communities/100875929141897651837)
* [HTML5 on Google+](https://plus.google.com/communities/103299867207875326585)
* [Node.js on Google+](https://plus.google.com/communities/115365528781941125390)
* IRC ##JavaScript irc://irc.freenode.net/javascript
* IRC #node.js irc://irc.freenode.net/node.js
* IRC #io.js irc://irc.freenode.net/io.js – the Node fork
## News
* [JavaScript Weekly](http://javascriptweekly.com/)
* [Node Weekly](http://nodeweekly.com/)
* [HTML5 Weekly](http://html5weekly.com/)
* [EchoJS](http://www.echojs.com/)
* [DailyJS](http://dailyjs.com/)
* [JavaScript Jabber](http://devchat.tv/js-jabber/)
## Pasting / sharing code
* [Codepen](http://codepen.io/pen/)
* [RequireBin](http://requirebin.com/)
## Contests
* [DemoJS](http://demojs.org/) The JavaScript demoscene party
* [JS1k](http://js1k.com/) JavaScript domes in 1k of memory
* [JS13k Games](http://js13kgames.com/) JavaScript games in 13k of memory
* [FightCode game](http://fightcodegame.com/) program virtual battle bots and climb the leaderboard
* [Node Knockout](http://nodeknockout.com/) The legendary Node competition
## Hackable Hardware
* [Nodebots](http://nodebots.io/)
* [Cylon](http://cylonjs.com/)
* [Nodecopter](http://www.nodecopter.com/)
* [Tessel](https://tessel.io/)
* [Espruino](http://www.espruino.com/)
## Hosting
* [DigitalOcean](https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=fdcfedac5208)
## Twitter (alphabetical order)
* [Addy Osmani](https://twitter.com/addyosmani) – App architecture expert, Chrome dev tools champion
* [Angus Croll](https://twitter.com/angustweets) – Author, “If Hemingway Wrote JavaScript”
* [Axel Rauschmayer](https://twitter.com/rauschma) – ES Next evangelist, author
* [Brendan Eich](https://twitter.com/BrendanEich) – Created JavaScript
* [David Nolen](https://twitter.com/swannodette) – Great functional programming content
* [David Herman](https://twitter.com/littlecalculist) – Author, “Effective JavaScript”
* [EchoJS](https://twitter.com/echojs) – News and links
* [Eric Elliott](https://twitter.com/_ericelliott) – That’s me. O’Reilly author. JavaScript architect. JS Instructor.
* [Jafar Husain](https://twitter.com/jhusain) – Great talks on RxJS, ES next, etc…
* [James Halliday](https://twitter.com/substack) aka Substack – author of ~one million~ Node modules you probably use.
* [James Long](https://twitter.com/jlongster) – CSP, functional programming advocate, Mozilla developer
* [JavaScript Cheerleader](https://twitter.com/JS_Cheerleader) – Mover & shaker, JavaScript evangelist, documentary film maker
* [JavaScript Daily](https://twitter.com/JavaScriptDaily) – News and links
* [Jordan Harband](https://twitter.com/ljharb) – Keeping us ahead of the JS curve
* [Kyle Simpson](https://twitter.com/getify) – Author, YDKJS – O’Reilly, JS Instructor, open web evangelist
* [Marijn Haverbeke](https://twitter.com/marijnjh) – Author, “Eloquent JavaScript”
* [Nicholas C. Zakas](https://twitter.com/slicknet) – Author, speaker
* [Nick Morgan](https://twitter.com/skilldrick) – Author, “JavaScript for Kids”
* [Paul Irish](https://twitter.com/paul_irish) – Developer evangelist, Chrome dev tools champion
* [Reginald Braithwaite](https://twitter.com/raganwald) – Author, “JavaScript Allongé”, speaker, GitHub
* [YDKJS](https://twitter.com/ydkjs) – You Don’t Know JS, O’Reilly book series by Kyle Simpson
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