How much JavaScript should I learn? 🤔

When it comes to studying JavaScript, people become bewildered, especially those who are new to programming. Beginners frequently believe that they will master all of JavaScript before moving on to frameworks like React, Angular, and Vue, but this is not the case. It would take years to learn everything there is to know about a language. To become a successful developer, you must master the fundamentals of the language or framework, and most importantly, you must cultivate a habit of learning so that you have the ability to learn new things whenever you need them for professional purposes in the future.

Step 1: Six fundamentals things of JavaScript.

1. When and how to use the terms "let" and "const" to make variables. You should also know about "var".
2. Conditional Statements: How to write conditional statements. There are eight conditions (>, <, >=, <=, ==, !=, ===, !==) and you need to know which one is used for what purpose. You should also know about && and || and how to use them to achieve multiple conditions. Moreover, you must know about if, else if, and else. Try writing conditions using one if statement, multiple else if statements, and one else statement. You write a code that finds a student’s grade from their mark number.
3. Array: You need to know how to declare an array. You should also have a clear understanding of when and how terms like length, index, push, pop, indexOf, and includes work in JS. You should be comfortable playing with an array. For example, you should be able to check whether an element is present in an array or not. Take a look at how slice and splice work. For additional learning, you can learn about shift, unshift, join, and if you want to learn a bit more, then check out Reduce.
4. Loops : You must know about two basic loops for loop and while loop. You should also understand when to use "for of" and "for in". We use "for of" and "for in" to iterate over array and object elements, respectively.
5. Functions are one of the most important things in programming. You should be able to declare a simple function. Have good knowledge of when to return from a function and when not to. Aside from declaring a function, you should also be able to pass parameters into a function and call it.
6. Objects: Learn how to declare an object and access its properties. You should also learn how to use an array or another object as an object’s property value.

Step 2: Basic Data Types

1. What is a String? How to declare a string? How to find a specific character in a string? Followed by a string you need to know about length, includes indexOf, toUpperCase, toLowerCase, subString, concat, which are built-in functions of Javascript. For interview questions, find out whether a string is mutable or immutable.
2. You have to know about numbers. What are integers and floats? How to convert strings into numbers? You also need to know how to check whether a number is integer or not. Find out more about NAN.
3. Usage of True & False in code. You also have to know about truthy and falsy values in JS.
4. What is Null and Undefined? What are the differences? You need to know when and how to check this.

Step 3: Seven things about ES6

1. Knowledge of declaring a string variable using a template string and how to add a dynamic value from an object to that string Moreover, you should know how to access values from a nested object or from an array that is inside an array.
2. How does Spread Operator (…) work? Learn how to copy an array and make a new array including new values. You should also know how to filter an array in JS using the filter function.
3. One of the most essential subjects to learn about and study is Arrow Functions. Try doing the following with arrow functions to level up your function game —
   * Create an arrow function that doesn’t take parameters and returns a value.
   * Create an arrow function that takes one parameter and then returns it after doubling it.
   * Create an arrow function that takes more than one parameter and does some arithmetic operations using those, then returns the result.
4. Destructuring: Learn how to destruct simple objects’ property values. Moreover, learn how to destructure complex objects like an array inside an object because in large scale projects you will be working with an API having a complex dataset.
5. Know how to declare an object using shorthand.
6. Default Parameters in functions.
7. What is Optional Chaining and when and how to use it?

Step 4: Knowledge of standard small libraries

1. Look up min, max, ceil, floor, abs, round, and random in the math library so you can figure it out if you need to use it at work in the future.
2. How to declare a Date? How to get the time from the date and format it?
3. Use of Regular Expression in JS.
4. How to parse and stringify JSON values?

Step 5: Four topics of Browser API

1. Knowledge of Local and Session Storage. How to use them?
2. How to use Location API in browser?
3. How to use History API in browser?
4. Try fetching data from the jsonplaceholder website and printing data in the browser console tab.

Step 6: More 5 Topics of JS

1. Create a number array and then use “map” to double each value and store it in a new array. All of this should be done in a single line. Learn about the functions of map, forEach, filter, and find in JS. These four principles are among the most significant in JS.
2. Explore Ternary Operators and learn how they shortcut if-else statements.
3. Know about Logical AND(&&) and OR(||) operator.
4. Learn what ++, — ,+=, -= does. Moreover, try to know what active=!active means.
5. Understand Object.keys and Object.values.

Step 7: It’s a must to know about DEV Tools & Debugging

1. Console Tab
2. Source Tab
3. Application Tab
4. Network Tab
5. Elements Tab

Step 8: Basic problem solving with JS

1. Play around with DOM, DOM Manipulation and know how to add event handler to DOM. Learn how to take data from input and show them in the UI. Try to do 3/4 projects using DOM manipulation concepts.
2. Know some theoretical concepts of JS like How JavaScript works? , Event Loop, Closure etc. This concepts are not a must for doing projects but this will help you to understand how JS works. Moreover, it will also help you ace interviews.

This is a beginners’ guide just to get you started with JS, but most importantly, as a programmer, you will come up with more concepts for JS when you start working with it professionally, but you have to build a habit and keep in mind that, as a programmer, you will always have to learn new topics if your project or work place demands it.

When it comes to programming, there’s nothing to be afraid of. You will ultimately cover all of the topics discussed in the blog if you set a goal for the next three months and spend 6–8 hours each day on programming. If you stay consistent and diligent, you will eventually cover all of the topics mentioned in the blog.

Happy Coding👨‍💻