"To become really good at anything, you have to practice and repeat, practice and repeat, until the technique becomes intuitive." - Paulo Coelho
“You become a master in what you repeatedly do in consistency. Mastery is not born; it is acquired. It is not blood-linked; it is skill-learnt! “- Israelmore Ayivor
“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." - Bruce Lee
JavaScript as a language has syntax that is easy to understand. However mastering the language is another thing. The best and recommended way to master JavaScript is through consistent practice and more practice until it becomes second nature.
However for you to practice JavaScript in a manner that will lead to mastery, you have to fulfil some requirements.
Step 1. Have your why for learning JavaScript, it is easier to learn and understand something that you have passion about. Why are you learning JavaScript of all the available programming languages out there? Is it because it is most widely used for frontend and can be used for backend as well? Is it because it is open source?
Step 2. Create time for study and time for practice. If you can’t allocate ample time for study, it will be very hard to move along.
Step 3. Learn the history of the language, why it was created, when it was created? , for whom and by whom was it created? Also learn its syntax, use cases and real life examples where JavaScript is in use. Answering these questions will help you to know the strengths, weaknesses and peculiarity of JavaScript. You should know that there is no perfect programming language.
Step 4. Learn the following concepts: JavaScript environment and runtime engines, interaction with the user i.e. the input/output via HTML elements or browser console, JavaScript datatypes (numbers, strings, boolean …), comments, variable declarations (var
, let
and const
) , operators (arithmetic, logical and comparison), conditional statements (if , if else, if else if and switch), looping/iteration (for
, while
and do while
) , JavaScript functions, array, objects , classes ,JSON and modules. Another important concept is the JavaScript event loop, since JavaScript is single threaded you need to learn about asynchronous functions, setTimeOut
function, promises etc.
Step 5: Read JavaScript documentation, blogs, watch online tutorial videos, read eBooks. The aim is to expose you to many scenarios where other people might be able to explain some concepts which you can’t grasp on your own.
Step 6: Participate actively in online JavaScript forums, hackathons and other online activities. You can also form your own physical or virtual groups. Participate in open source projects and collaborate as much as possible. You can also participate in projects individually or as a group.
Step 7: The JavaScript language specification known as ES is always being updated. This means new features are being added to the language to make it better and add more functionality. In that regard you have to keep abreast of any changes.
Top comments (0)