Until the past year or so, most of what anyone ever did in JavaScript was quick, hackish one-off functions -- when we needed a quick image roll-over, or a form to submit when the user makes a choice from a select menu, or a simple form validation. That's all changing, with JavaScript-heavy user interfaces on modernized web applications, and Ajax, Ajax, Ajax.

Even though Ajax wouldn't ever have become so popular if the JavaScript world hadn't suddenly exploded with mature development and testing tools, there's little information on how to be a really good JavaScript programmer.

This talk is for everyone who feels their JavaScript skills just aren't up to snuff. Talking points will include:

• What's JavaScript good for?
• Why the fundamentals matter
• Why JavaScript's a bit of a mind bender
• JavaScript's language design versus... every other popular language
• Objects and classes
• Callbacks and Events
• Manipulating the DOM
• Exploiting the Prototype library for fun and profit
• Obligatory 15 minutes for Ajax
• JavaScript and your back end
• JSON and other data transfer possibilities
• Useful JavaScript application design patterns
• Testing JavaScript
• The tools every front-end developer should have
• Interesting JavaScript-related OSS projects