How did Javascript click for you?

I found a book called “A Smarter Way To Learn Javascript” and it was exactly what I needed to get over the beginner roadblock and have things start clicking.

It breaks the concepts down into very short chapters, then each chapter has an interactive quiz that takes about 10-15 minutes, going over what you just learned and gradually increasing in difficulty from “complete this short line of code” questions to eventually “write the whole code block by yourself.”

It puts the emphasis on getting your hands on the keyboard and building muscle memory and confidence, as opposed to hitting you with dry theory out of the gate.

I moved on to more advanced books from there, but starting with that one really helped me get up and running quick.

I started to work on my own projects instead of following tutorials. But that comes with time and practice you need the tutorials to give you the fundamentals then you can go off on your own and build.

It's never the same thing that holds different people back, but understanding the variety of contexts in JavaScript helped it click. Basically, for me it clicked that I was generally programming against different environments which were as important as the language itself. If I'm in the browser the APIs I have access to, like window, document and so on are just as important as the language itself.

"JavaScript is most despised because it isn’t some other language. If you are good in some other language and you have to program in an environment that only supports JavaScript, then you are forced to use JavaScript, and that is annoying.

Most people in that situation don’t even bother to learn JavaScript first, and then they are surprised when JavaScript turns out to have significant differences from the some other language they would rather be using, and that those differences matter."

Douglas Crockford, JavaScript - The Good Parts, 2008; p.2

Often JavaScript isn't difficult but simply different - trying to impose a mental model that was shaped by another, preferred language usually only creates grief.

JavaScript is it's own thing and it has to be approached on its own terms. That may require some re-orientation.

MDN: JavaScript:

"JavaScript is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm, single-threaded, dynamic language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and declarative (e.g. functional programming) styles."

Slavishly adhering to any particular paradigm in JavaScript is probably a mistake, use what works well in JavaScript.

hi Gloria, wow i just posted about learning new skills and i found this message 😮
as the guys below say the best way is to play with it... and I can add "to have fun" with it.
You will see that the new challenges will be the way to keep learning.

My previous languages is Flash Action script, so changing is not so hard. But need a times to understund : new function(){} ... means some class like think. Big changes coming with ES6 : arrow, destructor, generator give great impact for JS ... and very like explore. Last major step is change OOP pradigm to Funtional Programming.

I really wait for pipeline operator |> of course.

• If you're actively learning, try to keep at it even just for a little bit every day. If you want the concepts to sink in you need repeated practice.
• Build your own projects or expand on the tutorials. When I was just going through tutorials without building my own things or critically thinking about how to add extra functionality, the material didn't stick as well.
• Learn from multiple sources. Sometimes the concepts are tricky and it may be that the way one person explains it doesn't make as much sense to you as someone else, or having different explanations gives you more contexts so then it's easier to understand. I took courses from Wes Bos, FreeCodeCamp and Scrimba, and that combination really helped me learn it more than only sticking to one site.

Brad Traversy's channel taught me all the basics almost single handedly. He's got several crash courses that explain JS front-to-end in a very pragmatic manner. I'm a 'learning-by-doing' type, so those videos really helped removing stoppers in the beginning.

Afterwards, I think it clicked a few times:

• Once I started learning my first other programming language (Python). It taught me the advantages of OOP, and programming principles in general.
• Then when I started learning Typescript. It taught me to worry less about writing the code, but giving it (and yourself) boundaries to work with.
• A few weeks ago when I started learning Rust. I got a deeper understanding of how Javascript's event loop, stacks and the heap play together. And why async code has to be written in callback functions or Promises.

And finally I figure, Javascript is still somewhat difficult. It just isn't as scary anymore 😎

Hey. I hope you find your way! As all person learn differently. You need to find your way and do some self experiment. For me is spending time on it and play with it break it, fix it and take it a part. Consol.log is your best friend.

After taking freeCodeCamp's JS algorithms and data structures curriculum, JS never felt hard to understand to me. That curriculum is just awesome.