What can you do with JavaScript? 🤖Resistance is futile.
You want to or already did learned JavaScript, and you are curious what other cool stuff can you build using it. In order to help you …
I made a comprehensive list of application types that you can build and platforms accessible using the JS programming language.
I don’t need to do an intro to JavaScript, I keep saying for years #javascriptwillconquertheworld. JavaScript, like The Borg, it evolved and now it even has the ability to assimilate native code.
I want to keep this reading short so I will not dig into details, instead I’ll redirect you to other resources where you can learn more for that specific. There are entire books dedicated to every section of this article.
Websites 🤠
This is how it started, it was made in 10 days by a Netscape (browser) employee, to serve ads and serve other small functionalities.
Games 🏄🏾♀️
Games were among the first software ever written, so of course you can write games with JavaScript. If you already know the language choose a WebGL framework and start playing!, if not here’s an intro tutorial:
Altrough I recommend C#, Unity3D allows you to use JavaScript for writing components, so you can build games for Android, iOS, Desktop, XBox, PS etc.
Games ca be combined with any platform. Beside browser games with WebGL you can build mobile or smartwatch games, sphero application for physical based games, server back ends as a service and so on.. the limit is your imagination.
Gaming platforms (video consoles) 🎮
Sometimes not only the games are built with JavaScript, but even the platform itself. AirConsole is a multiplayer (living room) online video games console, the screen is in your browser and your smartphones are the controllers. It is 100% built on web technologies. JSNES is a JavaScript emulator built to recreate and bring the old titles glory into the web world. Another example is Atari Arcade.
Atari Arcade: Classic Games Reimagined in HTML5
Play the classics directly from the web!
www.atari.com
Backend services (server side) 🚚
Before NodeJS we used other languages to build our back-ends like Ruby,Python,PHP,Java etc. Now we can use the same programming language for the Full Stack (CLI, Server, Client), increasing our productivity by sharing code, but losing performance in some cases. You can bundle your code into Containers and deploy it on a hosting service, VPS’s or “serverless cloud” environments.
Amazon AWS lambda and Google functions ☁
A subsection of “server JavaScript”, it’s the next step in the services evolution chain: monolith apps, web services, micro services and now “cloud functions”. There are used for small functionalities, wrapped in small containers that can be automatically scaled in real-time reacting to your needs.
Later edit: New cloud tools are emerging, a large scope one is AWS CDK, built to manage the Cloud infrastructure as-a-code:
CLI scripts 🕶
Command line tools are also a subset of “server JavaScript”. If you already have the code written in your NodeJS app, and you need it in a CLI tool and do not want to have duplicate code (in bash or something else), you can do it with NodeJS.
Desktop apps 🖥
Windows, Linux or Mac standalone applications can be built with JavaScript. Sure it can, didn’t you knew it? You are probably using one of them already (Twitch, GitHub Desktop, Slack, Discord, Visual Studio Code) more examples here:
OS & IDE’s 📇
Developers took JavaScript to extreme, building entire Operating Systems (kind of) and other heavy pieces of software that were exclusive written with low level programming languages (C & C++).
Mobile apps 📱
Mobile is such a vast topic that I can’t even make a summary, but I will try. Using the same technique as Desktop Apps, you can wrap your JavaScript code and deliver it to mobile. Read the following article to see the entire spectrum of apps (hybrid, web apps in browser or native apps):
Smartwatch apps & games ⌚
There are a few tricky ways to do this and not all platforms support it, but still is a good starting point:
IoT & Raspberry Pi 💡
JavaScript can control the Internet of Things(vacuum cleaner, lights, shower temperature …). It is a fork of “server JavaScript” and it can communicate with physical devices thanks to NodeJS.
Robots controllers ⚔
Like any efficient Borg entity, JavaScript can assimilate and control robots. IoT frameworks can be used to do this too, but there are also specialized communities and frameworks:
Social bots
Everything that has an API probably already has a few JavaScript clients written. Twitter, Twitch, IRC, Slack, Discord, Skype, Facebook etc.
Gadgets & new technologies apps 👾
I like to experiment with all the new shiny stuff, lucky most of them have a JavaScript compatible API like Sphero BB8 & Leap Motion. VR is accesible also using JavaScript in Unity3D.
Block chains 💸
The protocol that shake the world after the rise of the Bitcoin can be used with JavaScript. You can build an entire block chain, clients or apps on top of them. I even saw local Jams used to solve world problems using JavaScript and Block chains. Here is a list of related libraries written in JavaScript:
Minecraft 🏡
Minecraft mods allow the players to embed JavaScript. You can get an in-game console that interprets JavaScript code or write external scripts and run them. The main point is semi-automatization of your actions. There are also a server made in JavaScript and server-side addons in nodeJS.
Machine Learning & AI 🤖
JavaScript is not so good for math, but the developers built many libraries and frameworks to compensate and bring all that love from Python to JavaScript.
Competitions & game players 🏅
Competition arises when humans gather in larger communities. This is the case of the JavaScript ecosystem too. If you want to speed up your coding skills here are some battle grounds:
Presentations 🤓
If you are looking for a free & cross platform alternative to PowerPoint you can use JavaScript frameworks like:
[later edit] VR apps
Virtual reality applications & games based on 100% JavaScript. Kudo to Facebook.
The End
This is not the end, it is just the beginning. Because JavaScript is so friendly & accessible more&more people will start using it, resulting in more technological opportunities and a larger adoption rate.
Thanks! 🤝
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