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Maciej Wakuła
Maciej Wakuła

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JavaScript turbo startup

Note: Some topics might be intentionally skipped or not giving full picture to speed you up into JavaScript.

JavaScript language can run in a browser (ex. chrome, firefox, safari) or server (ex. node, bun). Your code runs command after command (serially) with no multithreading. Common mistake is to run long method (ex. "FOR" iteration loop) too long in a row blocking page or server.

Most often used IDE is currently visual studio code due to low price (free), great ecosystem and integration, plenty of features out of the box and plugins.

JavaScript has plenty of frameworks and modules (libraries) hosted on npmjs.com. Most cases you pick one framework for the front-end (browser), one for the back-end (server) and stick to them. It is important to separate front-end from back-end as modules are loaded and executed differently what in the end leads to different specialization of the tools.

Few projects to start: express web server, socket.io browser-server communication, passport.js authentication to login to your page, next.js framework, nest.js framework.

Language versions confusion.
JavaScript evolves dynamically and many features are being constantly introduced. Developers usually can use a transpiler, that is an application to translate code from whatever language (newest version of JavaScript, Typescript, coffeescript, etc.) into an older version of JavaScript supported by their browser/server. The most important distinction is to JavaScript, or rather EcmaScript with different versions (having a number of an equivalent year) and other languages. Things get much more complicated when you read about the module loading, code execution and more complex topics.

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