Lessons

Simple Data Types

I learned about data types since my last update. There are a few in Javascript and some get a bit confusing, like null and undefined. The tutorial I am going through did not really go into much detail on those, but I know there is a reason for them and probably important ones. The boolean, string, and number types were not that surprising to me since I've run into them in PowerShell and also from other beginner tutorials I have tested.

Simple Type Conversions

They also covered type conversions for objects. While they didn't go too much into detail on use cases, I can see a few. One would be logic on a website to check if someone actually filled out a field, with converting whatever string was entered into a boolean value to check for a TRUE value. As a side note, I've been using repl.it as my scratchpad for testing out quick JavaScript statements. Works perfectly.

As another side note I wanted to toss in here, I am learning markdown syntax way better than I ever have by writing these posts!

Operators

Ok. Now there is a lot here. I spent a fair amount of time on this topic just to get it down and make sure I understood.

Comparisons

Blah....

3 months have passed since writing the above...

New Outlook

The above is a draft that I wrote up a few months ago when I was first starting out learning Javascript. I have since taken a different approach to learning.

I am no longer following a guide from lesson 1 to lesson 2. That got monotonous and became a chore. While I am still working through a few PluralSight classes here and there, I am mostly just trying things out.

For example, I decided I wanted to figure out how to make a website make an API call and have the requested data returned to it so I made This basic, simple website. It returns a cryptocurrency price when a button is clicked.

Then I decided to take it a step further and not only make that API call, but accept a user input and take both the API call and that input and produce an output. That lead me to updating the first website into this.

I later came across the async/fetch functions in a different tutorial and saw how much easier it was than JQuery/Ajax(I think) to make an API call and return data, that I went back and changed my .js file on that website to use fetch instead to make the API calls. Code went from 70 something files down to 37 which was sweet. But the best part, was that I edited the .js file for this website and it worked the first time. I didn't believe it so I actually opened dev tools and went and made sure the updated .js file was actually being used. The new (same) website is here.

Conclusion

I'm not sure where I am at skillswise. I think I'm past the part where nothing makes sense and that is good! I still know nothing and I'm OK with that. What I did learn is that creating the simple website above was fun. I liked it. Each step of the way was a challenge for me and not in that "I don't want to actually be doing this" type of way. I think for now I will stick to the occasional structured learning course as there is still a ton of areas I have zero idea about and I'm sure there's concepts and topics that I don't even know I don't know about. I know though that I am going to start building more things even if I struggle through it and it looks horrible.

Did anyone else come to that point of structured learning limbo where you just said screw it and went off on your own to build something instead?