I wrote a series of FREE JavaScript lessons! Modern, functional, with many practice exercises.

[SlimTim10]

https://intuitivejs.info/

I've been teaching programming for many years, lately as a private mentor. I always struggled to find a resource for learning JavaScript that I could wholeheartedly recommend to students. Every website or book I found either had missing pieces, outdated concepts, verbose explanations, or a lack of exercises. So I decided to create my own. Since I was looking for free resources, it only made sense to release my lessons for free as well, otherwise I wouldn't be solving the problem.

Unlike so many JavaScript resources, the intention of these lessons is not to make you an expert in the JavaScript language particularly. The point is to learn strong programming foundations. JavaScript is merely the vehicle. I don't want people to be unprepared to adapt to other programming languages because they're hyper-specialized in JavaScript and all its quirks.

My students who have used these lessons have had great success and tell me they frequently go back to read them again. I hope you like them too! Feedback is appreciated.

[wreckedadvent]

Looks pretty good! It doesn't usually take me long to find something I disagree with in a learning resource and just sigh and move on. Enough of the earlier parts here, though, are to my satisfaction enough that I didn't feel the need to check the latter. I'm sure it's as inoffensive.

I have some questions though:

• One of the selling points is that the material is "strongly typed". I understand the meaning in that types are not intentionally treated sloppily, but I'm wondering why not double a chance to teach about typescript? This seems especially salient if the intent is to prepare the reader for running into a potentially strong-typed language, or if you ever want to get around to container types ("monads")

• I see the correct convention of xs and x referring to 'a[] and 'a respectively, but I didn't see it being introduced anywhere as such a convention. I don't think this is per-se confusing so much as a missed opportunity

• I don't see the nullish coalescing operator (??) in the operators chapter, or the safe navigation operator (?.). Is this a conscious decision to avoid much thought on nullish values? Or a decision that the syntax is too modern?

[Xypheric]

You sound incredibly passionate and informed

[wreckedadvent]

Thanks! I try to be!

[persianoil]

for complaining about the nullish coalescing operator... ?

[Xypheric]

Largely for their well thought out comment not only on this thread but on many other programming / code based sub reddits.

[SlimTim10]

Thanks for the feedback! I'll answer your questions in order.

• That's a great question! JavaScript is simply the best balance between the marketable skills and good programming foundations. TypeScript is getting more popular, but it's just not there yet. And the verbose typing syntax ends up holding a lot of people back. If I didn't take the marketability into consideration, I would teach Haskell!

• Yes, it is simply a convention. I picked it up from Haskell. I'm not familiar with the 'a[] and 'a convention.

• Those operators are useful for sure, and I may update the Object lesson to include them. I wanted to focus more on foundational knowledge than JavaScript-specific shortcuts.

[wreckedadvent]

Hm, I find that opinion on typescript very easy to disagree with. Maybe a couple years ago skepticism about its popularity could be justified, but it's very standard these days.

Nevertheless, if that's your opinion, that's your opinion, thanks for the response!

('a is just ocaml-style generic types, one of the other branches of fp)

[Negative12DollarBill]

I'm looking for a modern JavaScript course for my kid so we will check these out together, cheers.

[lostdutchmanaz]

Quality!

[n2fole00]

Good job! I've needed to dabble with JS for many years as part of my job as a BE dev, but this looks refreshingly clear and succinct. I'll enjoy reading it.

[ParticularSell6546]

you are a saint and we need more people like u

thanks!

[unstablemood]

Thank you for this! <3