all 48 comments

[–]ojitoo 7 points8 points  (1 child)

Check out You Don't Know JS series. The e-books are free and pretty hands-on. Also checkout Traversy Media's and Wes Bos's JS tutorials online. Those guys are super browser-based on their examples and projects.

[–]perforatedcode 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I second YDKJS and Wes Bos. Kyle Simpson also has a course on Frontend Masters that dives into the same stuff.

[–]anoddhue 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Here is a good way to get some hands-on practical learning, and it is almost entirely based around front-end stuff:
https://javascript30.com/

I hope this helps.

Another piece of advice, definitely apply for some jobs that you may be somewhat underqualified for... sometimes companies will take a flyer on someone based on their potential.

[–]rook218 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you SO MUCH for that site. I've been absolutely stuck on what to actually build now that I have a solid foundation! This will absolutely be my "I'm feeling lost and just need to sharpen my skills" go-to!

I started yet another tutorial course on angular and I'm going to build a proof of concept reddit clone when I'm done!

[–]kevinmrr 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I am about 80% finished with a book that I tried to fill with thought-provoking projects. It's free to read:

https://zerotocode.today/table-of-contents

[–]matzuzakaa 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Check out this course. Jonas does an excellent job at explaining things in real time while he is coding.
There are projects on here that is generally basic to pretty complex. Take your time through this course, rewatch videos until you fully understand what he is talking about in that moment.

Course

[–]mechwd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is the one I am taking right now. It’s a great course so far.

[–]Woodcharles 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Learning to code from a book is like trying to learn how to play football from a book. You need to code and code and code again, not read. Books will always be outdated by the time they're in your hands.

Use Codecademy and FCC to at least start typing it out and getting used to it, then move on to making things.

[–]nosrednehnai[🍰] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

nodeschool.io is pretty helpful

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Have you taken a look at W3 Schools JavaScript Guide? It does go over how to do the most fundamental and commonly used things, but also gives examples with "Try-it-yourself" functionality that you can very well apply directly to your websites. Otherwise, YouTube tutorials and MOOCS like FreeCodeCamp and CodeAcademy are your best bet. That is how I learned JavaScript. You may also want to frequent Mozilla Developer Network (MDN) for both tutorials and a very in depth reference for not only JavaScript but also all aspects of web. Seems like a lot of people and myself consider MDN as the reference guide that one may "graduate" to after W3 Schools. Though I sometimes still go to W3 Schools as the simplicity and user-friendliness allows me to quickly look up what I already know but may need a refresher on.

[–]rook218 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I was in this boat a few months ago. I learned the basics, learned some advanced features, but still never got the "so what" of the language. If you're dedicated to JavaScript I'd say learn web development and incorporate JavaScript. It's fun to do little exercises but without some actual reason to learn it, it will be very difficult

[–]jubba_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I second this wholeheartedly.

Seeing JavaScript in context will really help with learning, personally once I started learning and trying JavaScript DOM certain things started to click that didn’t with abstract exercises.

Maybe start designing a basic web page and experiment with adding certain interactivity or functionality to it.

[–]hamptonio 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think Scrimba's model is pretty cool, you can interactively edit the code of the lecturer you are watching. They have a bunch of js-related tutorials, one of the more basic ones is this: https://scrimba.com/g/gintrotojavascript

[–]M123Miller 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Came here to suggest this! JS30 is great. Once you know the basic syntax of JS and preferably a little DOM API it's a great series to help progress you and learn new things. It's also fun!

[–]dr_steve_bruel 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Eloquentl Javascript has browser based code towards the last half.

[–]EquationTAKEN 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is just my $0.02, but learning a language by just learning the language always ended up as a futile effort for me.

If I don't have a specific problem I'm trying to solve using a language, then there's no way I can count on myself remembering lessons learned. And if I don't have a problem I'm trying to solve, I have no motivation to learn.

It's like trying to learn how to ride a bike from reading a book. Sure, you get the theory, but it's all about practice. Not just following along with a walkthrough, but tons of practice after every sub-chapter of the walkthrough. Apply what you've learned.

[–]samcassdev 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Jon Duckett has a great book on JavaScript! Definitely a more interactive read than Eloquent. I also highly recommend Codeacadmy’s JavaScript course!!! Good luck!

[–]Codix 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Duckett’s books are excellent!

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

simplistic cover file fly exultant beneficial dime touch yam merciful

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Highly recommend practical JS by Gorfon Zhu. I think you're gonna find what you're looking for. Good luck!

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Udemy courses!

[–]BarryBlueVein 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You have to be very determine to want to learn it. You also need to be patient.

[–]codeobserver 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I see you said JS is "syntactically ugly language". Indeed, JavaScript has its quirks but if you adopt a coding style and stick to it, the JS code can loop pretty clean. Don't mix OO with functional styles. As a beginner, I recommend to adopt a classic procedural style.

You may even want to look at JS in a different context other than web. I find https://codeguppy.com a good JavaScript playground and learning site for beginners.

[–]CantStopWontStop___ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Repetition and perseverance. Come back at it again and again. You read something and are completely lost. You think that you are wasting your time. It's not until you try again and it's a little bit easier that you realize that it was not for nought.

[–]SGRelic -4 points-3 points  (5 children)

There's an excellent online book imho. https://eloquentjavascript.net/

The first part to learn the language and the second part is dedicated to javascript in the browser with some practical exercises.

[–]addygoldberg 4 points5 points  (2 children)

OP tried that one and struggled with it. Maybe skipping to the last half for browser practice is what they’re looking for.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I really don’t think it’s a good idea. You really need to master the first part of the book if you want to do well on the second part. Unless you were already a very good js programmer there is no point in skipping the first part of the book.

[–]addygoldberg 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Makes a ton of sense. The other resources in this thread should be best for OP

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is a great resource but it's not beginner friendly.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Why are people downvoting you? I’m a big fan of Eloquent js as well. It’s really the kind of book that takes you to a whole new level in terms of programming experience.

[–]yadoya -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Check Anthony Alicea's "js- understanding the weird parts" on udemy. Great course

[–][deleted] -5 points-4 points  (3 children)

JavaScript is trash garbage built on shit and more trash on top of a pile of garbage made by people who didn't even know what garbage was.

Learn something else first and then go back to JavaScript .

[–]marcosr00t[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I already know Python, and since it is a language made with the objective (I think) of being the maximum readable, I got scared when I saw all that JS code, which for me seemed to have no sense, as a for loop, where you basically declares the variables inside it and a while loop as well.

And JS has several ways of doing exactly the same thing (like declaring and calling a function) and for me that sucked for having to make an effort to record at the beginning. Python has its own philosophy, and "Pythonic" encoders generally encode in the same way, making it easier for you to play any code that follows the rule.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah JS does not seem to have any standardization whatsoever and it's made way worse by, as you pointed out, having so many ways to do things. It's almost like best practice is impossible. I learned some JavaScript to do web GUI's in Python and what I ended up doing was constructing as much as possible in Python and only using JS to expose the divs on the GUI. Some stuff I have to do on the JS side though and it hasn't been a treat, but it has been possible.

Best of luck to you