[megalodon]

SO feels more like a race to answer fast rather than to answer with quality. I think the best way to learn about the language is through the Mozilla Developer Network. I can't speak for everyone but I feel incredibly productive when programming in javascript.

I'd argue that jQuery was great, but now most (if not all) of it can be replaced by native javascript features (e.g. document.querySelector). Today I wouldn't recommend jQuery to anyone.

I suggest learning a functional language (in my case it was Haskell) in parallel, as it opens up new ways of thinking about javascript and problem solving.