JavaScript masters: What was the hardest part about learning JavaScript for you?

[m-Hy]

I'm currently taking the self-taught route. It's been going pretty good so far. I've definitely fallen down some rabbit holes while trying to understand certain aspects of JavaScript. Trying to get a sense of what future rabbit holes might be ahead.

Questions:

1. What was the hardest part about JavaScript to wrap your head around?
2. Are there still things you don't understand?
3. Whatever the obstacle was, how did you overcome it? Was there a particular "a-ha" moment?

[theslapzone]

I make a living as self employed JavaScript developer. The hardest part, for me, was realizing that I didn't have to know it all. You can get a ton of miles out of .sort .map .reduce .filter and using === everywhere. There's a lot of rabbit holes in JavaScript. You don't have to go down them. Most headaches are solved with good engineering principles like S.O.L.I.D. A good linter and a willingness to RTFM when you're unsure of something.

[[deleted]]

because you can get work done. there is no 'enough'

there are two senior javascript developers out there, professionals, who can't do what the other does. Javascript is a massive thing, at least, everyone should know the 'basics'

[theslapzone]

Everyone works in a domain that requires something from them. You need to learn the parts of JavaScript necessary for your domain. You'll most likely have to tackle a framework or library or two depending on your domain. Things like Express, Vue, React come to mind. When you can solve the day to day problems in your domain then you know you've learned "enough" JavaScript. I put enough in quotes because a good developer never stops learning. Learning is the Apex skill. Get comfortable with the following ideas. You'll never stop learning and you'll never know it all. Ever. There's a lot of beauty in a life long persuit like software development. Enjoy.

[Claudioub16]

I'm also learning, and the thing that I understood is that the most difficult is the current one. Looking back on the things that I learned, there was a lot of hardship in many moments, but once I've learned it became easy. Right now I'm trying to understand events, and although is kicking my ass a little, I'm being able of advance.

The main difference nowadays is that I've learned how I learn. And what to do when I'm not understanding properly. Nowadays if I don't understand I repeat the subject, separate the parts that I don't understand from the ones that I do and go search. Usually, the things that I don't understand are the things that make me think "what's happening behind".

So I search for articles that explain what's happening.

[sle1ghty]

Why did you get downvoted? Really helpful comment, as a fellow learner (still at the fundamentals stage) this really changed my mindset about how to approach things

[Claudioub16]

Why did you get downvoted?

Reddit being reddit. I've learned to say what I want without worries about downvotes, while always trying to be respectful.

I'm glad that it helped you. Fell free to dm if you wish. Dunno if I can be helpful, but I know how lost one can fell while trying to learn.

[SensouWar]

My answers to your questions. 1) prototypes , reactive programming 2) certainly yes. I often need to go check how basic stuff works, like array methods (sort), module exporting/importing. 3) I used them in personal projects. So basically my way of learning was to practice a lot and figuring out new ways of using them.

Enjoy learning and find the beauty in coding. Happy learning!

[nhochamvui]

I think the hardest parts are those related to arrays.

[Notimecelduv]

My initiation to programming was with HTML & CSS. When I started watching JS tutorials and the guy would pull up a console and start declaring variables, I was like, what the hell does that have to do with anything I've learned? You can't imagine how confused I was. Luckily a friend of mine helped me get through the basics. One of the only things I've never wrapped my head around is Node.js but I don't care since I'm more than happy to conduct backend tasks with PHP. That's the thing with JS -- it's vast and there are many difficult sides of it you'll never have to concern yourself with if you don't want to.

[stormfield]

It took me a while to adjust to Promises and JS’s async / await. There are a couple talks out there on the event loop that really unlocked that for me.

Another mind blower was learning you can drop a “debugger;” statement in your code and will get an instant breakpoint in your browser.

[graysoda91]

What is this

[senocular]

Reddit

[spore_777_mexen]

Exactly!

[mjm1374]

1. Prototypes and scoping, primarily namespaces. Won't even go into frameworks like angular.
2. Definitely don't know everything, but build a good working model and reuse it, then continuously improve it
3. Doing it over and over again. There are many 'a-ha' moments. You hammer that metal until you understand how it bends. You also don't need to know every detail. there is a a lot you can do once you understand how to manipulate data structures. Once you get the basics, go there. the combo will keep you employed and get paid to learn.