Quite a bit into the "Javascript" section of the "Front End Web Development" track & wondering: when will I use this?

Gina,

As Derick mentions, try checking out the JavaScript Basics course with Dave MacFarland. It might help to paint a clearer picture for you.

As far as who uses JavaScript and for what, the answer is relatively simple: if you will simply be designing websites and not building them, you don't need to know JavaScript (and technically, unless you're building interactive prototypes online, you wouldn't even need to know HTML/CSS at that point; you'd just need to know design principals and how to use software like Illustrator or Photoshop). If, however, you plan to build websites out after a design is agreed upon (whether your design or another designer's), then you will want to know JavaScript. Plain and simple! Of course, there are always ways of getting around that, like hiring a JavaScript developer to implement the interactivity in your website after you've built the style and structure with HTML and CSS, but that should be unnecessary with a little time and practice in the language yourself!

JavaScript is a front-end development language that is one of the three need-to-know legs for front-end development. You need HTML for structure, CSS for presentation, and (importantly) JavaScript for behavior. Sure, with CSS3, some things that used to be taken care of in JavaScript (animations and such) can be done within your stylesheets, but JavaScript is far from being down and out. Unless you want a very basic, static site, you're going to want to learn JavaScript.

It is not traditionally used for database interaction (for that, you would use a back-end language like PHP, Python, or Ruby, though JavaScript has begun creeping back to the server side with things like Node.js, which Treehouse has some classes on) or just for doing calculations and math (and to clarify what you've seen in the videos, I think Jim just uses integers as arguments in his examples, I don't think he's actually doing much math. He could just as easily have used strings or booleans, etc.), it is used for allowing client interaction with your web page. You will use it with forms, you can use it to add and remove classes for semantic and/or styling purposes on given events that JavaScript can watch for (such as user clicks, key strokes, state changes, etc.), you can use it to set timeouts and repeat processes and set intervals, you can change elements on the page depending on data passed to functions and variables that you've declared, etc. It is used to interact with the DOM, which is very important in modern websites. JavaScript (and any programming language, for that matter) can definitely be tough to grasp and confusing when you're just starting out, but don't be disheartened! As you practice, just as with HTML, CSS, software classes, etc., it will get easier and start making more sense.

The best thing you can do is seek out alternative methods of learning, especially if you're not getting it from a particular class here. I highly recommend also looking into Codecademy and the Head First series of books from O'Reilly Media as two other, different, and great resources. It's always best to learn from multiple sources, anyway, as things will be taught in slightly different fashions that a) you may understand better, and b) may show you other ways of doing things that you wouldn't have considered if you'd gotten all your information from one source.

To sum up: if you are going to be a front-end web developer, then you need to learn JavaScript. If you're going to be a designer that doesn't do any development, then you're probably fine without learning it.

Once you find the right resource to learn from, and once you start picking it up, its value will become crystal clear, and you will love the language and love using it. After you've gotten down the basics and understand what's going on with the language, you can then look into the ever-popular jQuery library, which will allow you to do a lot of things in a simpler fashion (in the sense that you will write less code to achieve the same goal). I was in your same boat before, and had to try a lot of different resources (such as the Head First books, codecademy, and Treehouse, amongst others) before things really started to stick. Now I work full time as a developer, both front and back-end, and I got that job after only a few months of hard work here on Treehouse. And I don't say that to gloat, but rather to help illustrate that it can be done, and it's not as tough as it may seem initially! I'm certainly no mathematician by any stretch of the imagination, and while I wish I was, it is not necessary to be for what you'll use JS for 99% of the time (particularly when it's used for web development). JavaScript helps your webpage and its visitors DO things, which is a very important part of the user experience...so give it a chance :)

Hope you find a resource that works well for you, and hope to see you back here with more JavaScript questions as you go along with the courses! Practice and ask questions where necessary, and you'll be a full-fledged web developer before you know it!

Happy coding!

Erik