Delicious JavaScript: Delectable Explanations of the Power of JavaScript
Practicum recently held a webinar featuring Adrienne Tacke, an educator, speaker, and Senior Developer Advocate at MongoDB. In the video, Adrienne discusses a few important topics related to JavaScript, including why so many people find the language difficult to master and how students can find the right learning styles to improve their skills.
The following is a summary of Tacke’s webinar. For the full experience, watch her webinar: “Delicious JavaScript: Delectable Explanations of the Power of JavaScript.”
What is special about learning JavaScript?
No matter where you are on your JavaScript journey, you will discover that the language is hard, complicated, and confusing. Adrienne breaks down why she uses these three adjectives to describe JS.
JavaScript is hard
Tacke says that many coders, including her, find JavaScript hard to learn. Even when you know other coding languages, JavaScript can feel a bit alien. It probably doesn’t help that few coders get opportunities to work with JS. Tacke typically works in C++. She didn’t start using JavaScript until a few years ago.
Recently, JavaScript has become more common among coders. Regardless, getting over the learning curve may seem daunting when learning JS, especially since it isn’t necessarily the most used coding language.
JavaScript is complicated
If you have ever used JavaScript, then you know how complicated it can feel.
The language evolves quickly, so the syntax you learned a year ago may not help you today. As soon as you think you have a good understanding of JavaScript, something changes!
JavaScript’s paradigm-agnostic nature also makes it complicated. As an agnostic paradigm language, JavaScript offers exceptional flexibility. That’s a strength at times, but the wealth of philosophical approaches can frustrate coders. For example, you can take an object-oriented, procedural, or functional approach to JavaScript. Each path can work well, but it requires a deeper understanding of the language, how it operates, and which method you should use to get the desired results.
If that sounds complicated, that’s because it is!
JavaScript is confusing
Adrienne Tacke had plenty of experience programming with C++ and other languages. Despite her knowledge, JavaScript still confused her. You will probably have similar experiences along your JavaScript journey.
It’s completely normal to feel confused when you start learning any programming language. With JavaScript, you should expect moments when you stare at your screen, wondering what’s going on.
Find your learning style to master JavaScript
JavaScript is hard, complicated, and confusing. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take the time to learn it. The language plays crucial roles in web applications. You need to know it to build dynamic websites that emphasize client-side behavior. Without knowing how to use JS, you will have a difficult time building any interactive content, social media platforms, search engines, and the tools that companies need to track users across the internet.
Knowing your learning style can make it easier to master JavaScript. You will still need to work hard, but at least you will know how to choose a smart approach to learning the language.
Take organized approach to learning JavaScript
Adrienne likes to take an organized approach to learning new things. With JavaScript, it isn’t always clear how to take an organized approach. You may find yourself wondering what skills you need to first learn before tackling other concepts. When you don’t know where to start, you can’t really organize your JavaScript educational plan.
For absolute beginners, Adrienne recommends using interactive, online learning tools that emphasize structured learning. As you move through the lessons, you will pick up essential knowledge. Over time, you will gain a better understanding of how JavaScript features can work together to achieve a desired outcome.
Look online for free study guides, introductory courses, and other resources that establish a path for you. Other people have been on this journey, so you can rely on their experiences to guide you. Practicum’s approach to learning JavaScript includes a complete immersion into JS that gets students to put theory into practice.
Don’t strive for perfection. Strive to improve.
As you start to build on your JavaScript skills, you may feel pressure to remember processes and syntax perfectly.
You might as well forget about learning every aspect of JavaScript. That’s not how programmers do their jobs. Even after you become proficient in the language, you will still need to look up uncommon syntax.
You will, of course, get better at remembering the elements you use frequently. After a few projects, some aspects of JavaScript will start to feel easy. You’ll begin to write lines of code without even thinking about it. However, whenever you need to look something up, you’ll have access to a vast array of JS libraries at your disposal.
It’s good to keep in mind that JavaScript projects require more than just knowing the language. You have to think about a lot of moving pieces when you develop an application. Expect to fall short sometimes. No one gets everything right the first time.
Learn JavaScript by finishing projects
With so many JavaScript videos, books, and tutorials, you can spend all of your time learning about JavaScript without actually learning how to use it. Reading up on JS and using educational resources is great, but you also need to get hands-on experience using the language to get the hang of it.
When working on projects, you discover how lines of code can work together to solve real-world problems. With enough practice, you can transform theory into deeper understanding.
Practicum excels at teaching JavaScript by encouraging you to work on and complete projects. In fact, you can’t complete the Web Developer course until you finish several projects that involve using JavaScript. This forces you to stop thinking about JavaScript in a theoretical way.
You’ll get feedback from your instructors and mentors, so you won’t ever feel stranded when you don’t know what step to take next. The important thing is that you try, learn from your mistakes, and increase your knowledge.
Visit Practicum to take a free course and learn more about developing the skills you need to start a new profession in technology. And make sure you drop in on Adrienne Tacke’s website to read her blog posts and see where she’s speaking next.
