infinitives - help you learn vs. help you to learn

Source: JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford (2008)

Example:

My goal here is to help you to learn to think in JavaScript. I will show you the components of the language and start you on the process of discovering the ways those components can be put together.

Although it is usually the case that you mostly hear people say something like "this will help you become a better person", is there any particular reason as to why he chose not to leave out the to and say help you to learn instead? If you've got something interesting to say, could you please elaborate on it as well? I would very much like to receive some coherent explanation and get this thing finally straight.

The only time I know of, though, that you would use the to is when you say it like this:

It helps a lot to think of the rather difficult concept of classes used in modern software development as mere blueprints that architects and builders use to build houses.

In life, it really helps to know your times tables by heart because not all the time do you have a calculator on you.

Because the aspect of the verb "help" is a little bit different here. But in all other cases, help do or help you do something is by far more common.

Answer

Well, after doing a lot of digging around, it looks like there really isn't a specific rule for this because there is little to no difference between the two. I think that the comments on your question confirm this...plenty of native speakers can't seem to find a distinction between the two.

So it looks like the "to" is completely optional. What is strange about this is that there doesn't seem to be much of a connotative difference between the two versions at all. Usually when something is optional, the different versions have some sort of connotative difference - possibly more formal or more colloquial. It doesn't seem like that is the case here to any extreme degree.

Both sentences below have the same meaning:

My goal here is to help you to learn to think in JavaScript.

and

My goal here is to help you learn to think in JavaScript.

I will say that I personally prefer the second option without the extra "to." I think this may be because the to-infinitive sounds slightly more formal, and in this case, since the writing style and topic seem on the informal side to me, leaving the "to" out (using the "bare infinitive") makes more sense to me.

BBC World Service's page on learning English confirms this:

The difference is one of form only. There is no difference in meaning. to-infinitive or bare infinitive

Help is a verb that can be used with or without to and with or without an object before the infinitive. When we use it without an infinitive it sometimes sounds more informal. Compare the following:

• 
  

  Could you help me to look for my car keys? I can't find them anywhere.

  
  


• 
  

  Could you help me look for my car keys? I can't find them anywhere.

  
  



• 
  

  Would you like to help to cook dinner tonight? It's late and I'm feeling tired.

  
  


• 
  

  Would you like to help cook dinner tonight? It's late and I'm feeling tired.

  
  

Here are a number of links that you can check out for more info on this (that appear to confirm what I've written above).