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JavaScript

Posted by Sarunas Medeikis
Sarunas Medeikis
1,141 Points

How to get better in JS ? I have read at least 3-4 books, and I still don't feel confident in it.

Hello,

I've been doing tutorials here, I have read quite a few books, now I think about reading "Eloquent JS" , I am not sure, if I am learning wrong, or what. Because I don't feel confident in what I write. I am afraid to even start writing app using just HTML/CSS and JS. What should I do to become better at it ? I know how to write functions, objects, arrays, loops, I know coercion, anonymous functions, I am not that good at closures, I still get lost often in the process itself. Can you guys help me somehow ? Because the way it is now, I don't feel motivated at all :C

2 Answers

Robert Richey
Robert Richey
Courses Plus Student 16,352 Points

Hi Sarunas,

What helped me to become more comfortable with JS was to create things using it. It wasn't until I learned jQuery that JS started clicking for me. Try creating small demos for yourself - CodePen is an excellent place for experimenting with code.

Throw a button on the screen and have it do different things when clicked or hovered. Add some jQuery UI for fun things like being able to drag elements around the screen. Here is one of my favorite demos that I wrote trying to get more comfortable with JS / jQuery.

Perhaps another technique that can help is to not force JS onto yourself. When I began thinking of it as just a tool instead of some holy grail, learning was easier. Figure out what you want to do, then Google it, learn it on the fly.

Hope this was helpful in some way!

Cheers

Robert Richey
Robert Richey
Courses Plus Student 16,352 Points

Recently saw a post on Hacker News I think you might enjoy. JavaScript Callback/Event Loop Visualization. More generally though, watching and listening to other developers talk about their craft has helped me tremendously.

Treehouse Friends "is a series of interviews with interesting people in the web design and dev fields and other industry experts."

If you're not sure which interview to start with, I recommend the Chris Coyier interview - founder of CSS-Tricks and co-founder of CodePen.

Also, consider looking into videos from JSConf and An Event Apart - particularly enjoyed the ones with Jared Spool, Mike Monteiro, and Chris Coyier.

Finally, and while not JS related, I'd like to share these videos with David Heinemeier Hansson - hacksummit.org and Unlearn Your MBA - which offer excellent perspective on the business side of software and what it was like to create Basecamp with Ruby on Rails.

Sarunas Medeikis
Sarunas Medeikis
1,141 Points

Thanks!

rydavim
rydavim
18,814 Points
rydavim
rydavim
18,814 Points

The thing that helps me most when learning new languages and skills is to create my own projects after each course. This helps me reinforce the concepts and confirm that I understand and can use everything I learned.

Typically I try to make these projects similar enough that I don't feel lost, but different enough to challenge me. So for a course teaching how to create a lightbox image display, I might make an image gallery that displays a larger image off to the side when you mouseover.

It also helps me to plan out what I'm trying to write just in plain language in a notebook first. I try to break it down from the large meta-chunks to the simpler steps needed to achieve them. And - as always - practice, practice, practice.

That's not to say my approach will work for everyone, but hopefully you find a method that clicks for you. Happy coding!