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JavaScript

Nathan Begnaud
Nathan Begnaud
8,221 Points
Posted by Nathan Begnaud
Nathan Begnaud
8,221 Points

I Still Don't See The Importance Of Learning JavaScript

I'm on stage 3 with the JavaScript Track and I don't see how anything of what I've learned can contribute to a website. The only thing I found that does anything to the website is the alert function. I heard it makes your website run smoother but how? I still don't understand the importance of anything I've learned thus far. Would it be bad If I just skipped the rest?

7 Answers

Tomas Ferruelo
Tomas Ferruelo
Courses Plus Student 10,412 Points

It is important. What you are learning will help you do the actuall useful stuff. You need to know about variables, objects and all the rest. I know it is not exactly fun, but once you get to Jquery it will all make sense and you will have a lot of fun projects to do!

Nathan Begnaud
Nathan Begnaud
8,221 Points
Nathan Begnaud
Nathan Begnaud
8,221 Points

Oh I didn't know those two linked together, thanks for advice I was going crazy not knowing what I was learning lol.

Louis Sankey
Louis Sankey
22,595 Points
Louis Sankey
Louis Sankey
22,595 Points

I couldn't get through the javascript deep dive until going to codecademy and taking the javascript course over there first. I think its a more fun introduction because you get to see a lot of the things you can actually do with javascript, and then when you come back to the treehouse deep dive it will cover the material in a different way and solidify a lot of things.

Nicolas Wolf
Nicolas Wolf
11,607 Points
Nicolas Wolf
Nicolas Wolf
11,607 Points

For front-end, JavaScript is what you get into once you realize that CSS can't do what you need.

For devs, well, people are using JavaScript more and more for developing web applications, rather than using flash, since flash doesn't work well on mobile. Also, JavaScript a real coding language, so if you know it, you can more easily transition into software development.

Learning JavaScript means learning to program. If you're more interested in basic web design for small, private clients, JavaScript will never show it's true value.

Tomas Ferruelo
PLUS
Tomas Ferruelo
Courses Plus Student 10,412 Points
Tomas Ferruelo
Tomas Ferruelo
Courses Plus Student 10,412 Points

No problem! I was there too. I know it kinda sucks but once finally doing actual stuff is too good! I did "Jquery Basics" in just 2 days because it was too interesting!

notf0und
notf0und
11,940 Points
notf0und
notf0und
11,940 Points

I believe the first goal is to learn the language and to program, then you will learn about designing/developing with JavaScript. I personally think you shouldn't skip anything, unless of course you know it already.

JavaScript is very handy when designing a website, and is a must know language for any web developer/designer I'd say.

Josh Hicks
Josh Hicks
14,146 Points
Josh Hicks
Josh Hicks
14,146 Points

DUDE!!!! I have felt this way for a long time also. I think vanilla javascript is not really useful for me (yet). I do want to learn how to build web apps, so I assume it will be very important later but it's extremely dry and seems very unrelated to making websites. jQuery is EXACTLY what you'd think javascript is used for....and technically jquery IS javascript. Also, I would recommend checking out Code School's javascript courses. It's a lot more "real world" feeling and fun. Plus if you wanna get deeper into it, they have javascript frameworks also. Hopefully Treehouse will catch up with them in that regard soon.