Javascript For Dummies
18 Jan 2023
JavaScript: A New Frontier
I’ve always seen cool websites/platforms such as Apple, Google, Netflix, etc., and I knew that I had to learn more about web development languages since they have become such an essential tool for students in computer science. Many open internship and job positions require at least some basic knowledge or skill set in web development which is why I thought it was beneficial to learn more about JavaScript.
I always thought that this goal to learn JavaScript would be a challenging hill to climb because it seemed like so much knowledge to take in, especially with the 142 lessons we were assigned to do. However, upon further inspection, learning JavaScript wasn’t as bad as I put it out to be.
I enjoy programming in JavaScript because it’s a more “relaxed” language. For example, it’s dynamically typed meaning we don’t have to specify a variable type since that is determined at runtime. I also liked how JavaScript supports first-class functions where we can treat functions as variables/objects.
JavaScript wasn’t too bad to learn because its structure is similar to other programming languages I’ve seen such as C++ and Java, granted, these are both object-oriented.
From a software engineering point of view, JavaScript can be a powerful tool for both front-end and back-end development. The fact that JavaScript is so versatile and flexible makes it a unique language that developers can utilize synchronously with other web development languages.
Just Like A Plant, You Need Water
Benjamin Franklin once said, “without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.” That being said, we should always be striving to become our better selves by making goals, and stepping out of our comfort zone to reach these goals.
In general, we’re like plants…in order to grow we need water and nutrients, or in this case practice!
This is where athletic software engineering comes into play. After learning the basics of JavaScript and ES6, I completed 3 different Workouts of the Day (WODs) where I tried to improve the time I took to solve the problem after each try. I started to notice myself getting more and more comfortable with the syntax and eventually solved the WODs with ease.
I found myself enjoying the struggle and race against time. I like to solve Sudoku puzzles in my free time and beat my best time, so these WODs seemed more like a fun little game I play against my past self.
As the saying goes…practice makes perfect, but in this case, practice makes a software engineer!