If I, as a newbie programmer learning my first language, am finding the programs in John Resig`s Secret of the JavaScript Ninja (as well as his Pro JavaScript techniques) to be extremely difficult, does it suggest that I would never be able to get work in any kind of company with JavaScript?

No, Javascript is an atypical language to learn. I found it extremely difficult to pick up in the beginning. This is because its essentially a functional language with syntactic constructs from very imperative languages like C and Java. This makes it feel like a lot of what you know from C/Java may carry over, but its usually a bad idea to do things the same way in Javascript. It takes a while to see through that and adjust yourself to the necessary frame of mind. Then, there's also a very different inheritance model from other languages. Put together, I think this makes Javascript a tricky first language. I found it a little easier once I knew a little about a functional language (SML). In any case, I find the following tutorials by an excellent introduction to hands-on Javascript before you go on to a well-recognized book. EDIT: [the website seems to have been taken down but there may be a cache somewhere] http://www.cmurpg.com/assignment.php?n=6 http://www.cmurpg.com/assignment.php?n=7

No. Don't be discouraged. Note the introduction at http://jsninja.com : This book is intended to take an intermediate JavaScript developer and give him the knowledge he needs to create a cross-browser JavaScript library, from the ground, up. First of all, it's for the intermediate developer. Second, this intermediate developer may need to develop a library - a minority of programmers, at best.

Like others have said, it is not an introductory book. If you want a gentle yet deep introduction you should try "Eloquent JavaScript" by Marijn Haverbeke. There is a free online version at http://eloquentjavascript.net/