Learning JavaScript
About me
I am a college student majoring in Computer Science and a front-end Web Developer for a Marketing Agency. I've always had a passion for programming and getting into the nitty gritty of a particularly difficult programming challenge. Coming up with fun and innovative solutions to tough problems is my spice of life!
Why I wanted to learn JavaScript
The company I am at is really starting to grow and take off in the higher education and nonprofit sectors, which means more clients and more high level web development work. I therefore decided I really needed to complete my stack of front-end development technologies and skills in order to more effectively lead our tech department into the future.
How I approached learning JavaScript
If there is one thing I know, the internet has everything. I spent hours just combing through YouTube videos, code practicing sites, and eventually settled on a paid service that had a great combination of video lectures, quizzes, and coding projects. Having variety when learning, I think, helps concepts stick and makes the learning process that much more fun!
Challenges I faced
Having a love for programming and some background in computer science, grasping the concepts of the language was not that hard, but finding the time was. I was constantly pushing it off in favor of other things but I knew I wanted to learn it! So, I made a strict schedule, gave myself a bit of self-motivation, and from there, I was off!
Key takeaways
Practice, practice, practice. It does you no good to watch the videos and then do nothing with it. I've found that the real way to solidify the material is to test it out. Even if you don't have a job like I do, that constantly lets me flex my new muscles, simply making up a fake project or task and then trying to build it out can be just as good!
Tips and advice
Don't be intimidated. It might seem at first that this is a subject that is so far out of reach that you couldn't possibly grasp it, but I assure you, with a little effort, it isn't that difficult. Especially if you have a background in programming, learning this language should be a piece of cake. As one of my professors once told me, once you learn how to learn a language, picking up a new one is easy!
Final thoughts and next steps
My next goal is to complete my studies and gain a complete mastery of the language. After that, it's on to learning a framework (maybe Angular JS) and then onto the back-end so I can someday fulfill my dream of becoming a full-stack developer.
A Nice and thoughtful post here. Thanks Robert for sharing your journey.
All you said here are true and though I am not from a CS background but I got interested in reading this article because I am also presently learning javascript (for free because I can’t afford any paid class).
I however took note of your last statement “After that, it’s on to learning a framework…”. This mean you want to finish learning all about javascript before diving into a framework. This made me want to seek your opinion regarding my own learning path.
As for me, I learnt only javascript basics for a week or two and now, I am presently learning react.
It’s been a really tough journey and I realise there are so much of JS I don’t know yet and this is making my ‘react’ journey a tedious and frustrating one. I love knowing the how why when I am using ‘anything’ but right now, I don’t seem to have a full indepth understanding of many things I’m learning (and using) in react. It’s really frustrating and I keep thinking I need to get a good grasp of javascript before diving into any framework.
So my question is this - do you advice I drop react and try learning JS properly before picking react again or should I continue learning react and keep filling in the knowledge as I move along? ( probably things will get much easier as I familiarize myself with it)
I would be glad to know your opinion concerning this. Once again, thanks for sharing your learning journey.
Hi Michael! I appreciate you providing your feedback. As far as your question is concerned, the simple is answer is yes, I would go back and more fully learn JS.
This is because at the core of it, a JS framework is not another language but simply a way to help provide structure and organization to your code. If you dont have a solid understanding of the language then your going to have a hard time organizing it. Either that or worse, it could become a hinderance to you fully understanding JS.
Also, while a framework can be very useful, it isnt always necessary. Unless the JS you need to use is significantly large and/or complex, then using a framework can waste your time and unecessarily increase page loads times.
Plus, you’ll miss out on a lot of the simpler yet super useful stuff you can do with JS early on with just a few lines of code. I remeber within the first month or so of learning JS I was able to start performing fairly complex actions off of user interactions. No framework required.
Bottom line, you’ll get more out of the language and the framwork if you more fully understand JS first. Keep up the good work man and be sure let me know how the rest of your journey goes!
Thanks Robert. I am glad to get a reply from you. I had to read it several times to make sure it sinks😊.
I had also thought about it but without a mentor around or online, it was hard making the decision. so, I kept hoping one day I’ll be able to make the right decision (Well, it seems that day is today) and seeing your reply now got me convinced.
This means I will pause learning react for now and pick up from where I left off in vanilla javascript.
Thanks a lot for the response. I will definitely let you know how things are going. Hoping to read more work from you here too.
Well done! and thanks for the encouragement.