- Why is learning JavaScript so hard?
- How long did it take you to learn JavaScript?
- Why is JavaScript so popular?
- What is the best way to practice Javascript?
Let's deconstruct this ⬇
A Thread...
In my learning journey,
I realize that a majority of resources available for learning JavaScript - books, PDF, courses, are not learner-friendly.
I felt that the tutor was in a hurry to get to the end of the course and was not educating the rationale behind the code.
The content quality of such tutorials is questionable.
Since JavaScript runs in IE, Edge, Firefox, Chrome, Brave, Safari, and a dozen other environments, great care must be taken when teaching & coding anything in JavaScript!
JavaScript can do what’s called silently fail.
Programming language learning paths:
- What is the language
- Why the language
- Set up environments
- how to run the codes
- Hello, world
- Basic syntaxes var, ifs, loops, methods.
- Some dude is now lost.
What is next if you don’t know to StackOverflow, or read documentations
- Why is learning JavaScript so hard?
Yes. That is partially because programming is hard.
But other reasons:
- JavaScript can be written in many different ways, and these ways can be so different that one JS developer can find another JS developer’s code almost inscrutable.
- Javascript is hard because it's so flexible. There are so many ways to do the exact same thing.
- There are just light-speed changes with frameworks and libraries, that it's hard to keep up sometimes.
JS is hard, but the freedom it provides has revolutionized web technology.
To a complete beginner I would suggest the below roadmap:
- Learn what a browser is?
- Learn about Web page?
- Get a summarized history of HTML & CSS.
- Why JS?
- JS Rendering engine?
- The fun begins with DOM and what it is.
- Basic syntaxes variables, ifs, loops, functions.
- DOM traversing and manipulating.
- OOP in Js
- Concepts like callbacks, hoisting
- Libraries
- Frameworks
I am sorry if you are lost till here.
Javascript is a lot (Take time, relax, reflect, restart).
- How long did it take you to learn JavaScript?
Step 1: Learn Vanilla JS
Vanilla JS refers to code that is not enhanced by any frameworks.
Because frameworks enhance the JS language, I encourage aspiring developers to learn the JS language before jumping into the enhancements.
Learn from high-quality books and courses.
To learn how to code, you need 2 things:
A strong mindset that will allow you to work through frustrations & continue to progress when you get stuck
AND
A couple of decent courses that cover JavaScript in depth.
Keep in mind, I’m still learning it
I don’t think there’s a point with any programming language where you get to say you’ve definitively learned it.
It took me 1 year to learn how to program in JavaScript.
There’s still a lot I don’t know.
- Why is JS so popular?
It is clearly due to the rise of web applications.
Evergreen Browsers
Let’s face it, old browsers suck.
They suck because they don’t have the new features that make development easier.
Chrome was the first browser to introduce automatic updates.
Node.js:
Node was not the first to expand JavaScript capabilities beyond the browser, but it was one of the most well thought out and clearly has the most traction.
The LAMP stack is being replaced with stacks like MEAN (Mongo, Express, Angular, Node).
- JavaScript can be used to generate dynamic content on a website.
- Event-Based Programming, A very cool feature of JS.
- Because it’s good & it works.
- It’s so elastic you can make it work however you like.
- What is the best way to practice Javascript?
The best way to practice JavaScript is to work on a project.
Don’t take on the whole project at once.
Don’t try to build all the features at once.
Go step by step.
Some key points which helped me in my journey:
- It’s just like muscle memory, the more you code the more it becomes natural.
- Anytime you learn a new concept, see how you can improve past code.
In this thread, I’m going to show you the e2e process
Along the way, I’m also going to discuss:
- How to learn to code in the first place
- What to learn after learning to code
- How to get your first coding job or internship
- Is it important to get a computer science degree?
It’s easy to lose motivation or get so frustrated you feel like throwing your computer against the wall, at the start of your journey but the truth is if you’re going to be successful at becoming a self-taught developer you need a solid game plan before you get started.