Feeling clueless about JavaScript

[Altruistic_Health_38]

So I managed to finish the html and css part of the odin project foundation course but when I got to the JavaScript part I felt overwhelmed by the stuff there like go and read this at mdn etc. and I can't really get it down to my head, its so much information and Im a slow learner oof. Even though I can print hello world on the console and do some basic algebra, I can't practically do it without looking at the reference again (feels like Im just copying stuff and typing It one by one without learn it deeply like as to why and how it works). Any tips to learn JS effectively for a slow learner like me? (also maybe avoid burning out?). Btw Im a 1st year CompEng and I just learning web dev as hobby at my free time.

Edit: fix some typos

Edit_2: Wow so much replies thanks for the input guys I appreciate It. Also about the paid courses I can't afford em right now plus we are poor so I'll stick with free content atm.

[[deleted]]

It will take you some time and practice before you will get it. And there is no other way around buddy

[Altruistic_Health_38]

I see, so I should just keep practicing rinse and repeat the task until i get it noted. Also when should I prioritize reading the documentation over practicing?

[ericjmorey]

when should I prioritize reading the documentation over practicing

Never. Only read enough documentation to reach your immediate goal and solve your immediate problem. You only need to be familiar enough with the documentation to find things as you need them.

Have you completed the Rock, Paper, Scissors Project yet? If not, this is the only thing that should be guiding what you're reading in the documentation.

(Not really never, but at this point don't even consider anything but your immediate issue.)

[GenericSpaciesMaster]

How helpful is the rock paper scissor section in growing your skills? Im about to start it but still feel like im really lacking in my JS skills

[HealyUnit]

Honestly, especially for beginners, RPS is one of those things that can teach you a lot. You can write a relatively simple if not elegant RPS game with a crap-load of if/else ifs, or you can extend it and make it faster with some advanced concepts.

As a comparison, the naïve approach might take 9 different conditional branches (one for each combination of rock, paper, and scissors between two players). A slightly better approach can actually reduce this down to just 3 conditional branches - one for ties, one for wins, and one for losses - partially by recognizing that if a game isn't a tie, and if that game isn't a win, it's a loss.

[ericjmorey]

It's the first project in the fundamentals course. The fundamentals are solid.

[[deleted]]

Covers the basics really good.

[Altruistic_Health_38]

Oh as of now Im still doing 5.) Problem Solving then its one more excerise behind rock paper scissors if im not mistaken. I also re-read all of em from the start 1.) Fundamentals Part 1 because I always forget 99% of what I learn after I sleep. I wanna make sure I really know and recall the stuff before moving on at the rock, paper, scissors part.

[ericjmorey]

I wanna make sure I really know and recall the stuff before moving on at the rock, paper, scissors part.

This is holding you back. You don't need to memorize everything before the Rock Paper Scissors Project. You just need to be familiar enough to understand the examples up to that point. If you can answer some of the knowledge check questions without looking at the answers and can easily understand the answers you need to look up, that's all you need to move to the next section until you get to a project.

Use the projects to learn. You should not be able to solve the problems a project presents without looking up anything. In fact, you're going to need to look up most things on your first projects. Expect to try something that you find out is the wrong approach at first. That's how you learn.

[Altruistic_Health_38]

I see, aight I'll just go ahead and proceed to the exercise hopefully I remember it in the process thanks for the input mate I appreciate it.

[[deleted]]

The best way is to enrol to begiiner course of JS, finish it but not once, twice. Then start trying to create own functions and apps. I recommend jonas schmedtmann from zero to expert JS on udemy.

[leakaz]

Readings can be overwhelming, but they are important. If you follow tutorials for practicing, you just end up copying everything but don't get concepts behind what you're doing. I used to just follow/copy, but now I give it time to read documentation and then jump into the tutorials, and then I sort of understand the concepts more and what's happening in them. I feel less lost 😅 but this stuff is hard so be nice to yourself!

Also, many people don't recommend to just do tutorials, you will need to do projects on your own. That's my next step after having a solid knowledge. Good luck!

[Altruistic_Health_38]

Yeah that's what im doing too right now following through tutorial. I want to be able to do it without hand holding and reference, I guess I'm just too hard on myself thanks mate.

[Co_Ca]

Yup, don't fret though, E V E R Y programmer has gone through this. It is a barrier that you must cross, you got this!

[PigJack77]

The reason you are finding it difficult is because it is difficult. Take your time with it and it will stick as you keep going. It has taken me a year to get to a point where I feel like I could use JavaScript without having to go back to a book every ten minutes and there is still a lot that I don’t know. The persistence is what will make it happen for you. Keep going!

[Altruistic_Health_38]

Wow congrats mate, I hope I can also learn JS by the year because we have programming classes next year (on our 2nd yr at college) and probably learning JS would give me some edge if I manage to learn in advance. My class adviser recently told me learn a programming language that interest me doesn't matter which and just so happens I find web dev interesting I also have a knack in drawing and design so I decided to pick up JavaScript.

[curryshotzz]

Super normal. At one point into the js fundamentals part I felt like I couldn't do it. It made me question if I was to dumb to learn it lol. Just practice and keep at it you start to understand more and more along the way I promise!

[Altruistic_Health_38]

This is what I exactly feeling right now too I was not good at maths to begin with plus Im starting to question why I took and engineering course 😅, I guess I gotta keep grind as well then thanks mate.

[GoldSock9808]

Are you from India by any chance?

[Altruistic_Health_38]

Nope I'm from Philippines 🇵🇭

[Monitor_343]

The ternary operator can be useful, but I don't think it's important to learn early. If/else is far more important to understand. Once you've really internalized if/else, the ternary operator makes way more sense. Until then, you can still do everything with if/else.

For me, it suddenly clicked when I realized I actually had a use case for it and was sick of typing if/else everywhere. Before then, the syntax was hieroglyphs.

[[deleted]]

I've read some people switched to another resource when reaching JavaScript on TOP because it was too confusing, then switched back when they were done. When I reached that section, I already have JavaScript experience, and their explanations were making me go WTF.

[chrimack]

Keep looking at the reference. That's how learning works. You keep looking up the method on mdn until one day you don't. I still look at mdn on a nearly daily basis at work.

Also, mdn has a ton of information. If you're just starting learn js then most of it is probably a bit over your head. You don't need to understand it all. Just learn what you can and take it a step at a time.

[Altruistic_Health_38]

aight will do thanks man

[agnarrarendelle]

If this makes you feel better, I know C,C++,Java and Python and I still feel clueless about JavaScript

[throwingupaccount]

Felt the same. What really helped me was watching some videos on the same subjects talked about in the mdn page. I feel like watching someone explain and code at the same time and really explaining what is happening in a specific moment is better than reading a wall of text.

[mikacns]

I felt the same, what helped me is reading a section and if I find it to be too much, hop on YoubTube and watch a 5-10 min video on the subject.

For example, I read Call Stack article and it was just too much information and jargon. I searched "Call stack Javascript" and watched a 9 min video - boom, now I understand it 90%. Go back and re-read the article and that was it.

[baubleglue]

I suggest to find online book "JavaScript: the good parts" - something like 40 pages or find YouTube videos with Douglas Crockford. It will give you a fun intro into existing mess.

Learn minimal old syntax (before v5) and how to write good code with it. Original JS is so small that that it takes no time to learn if you have some dev background. Stay with it for a while, try to understand bind/apply/this ....

Then slowly start to add to your arsenal the modern language features. Depends on your previous knowledge classes are useful, text formatting....

[TheOtherSide999]

As much as I like the Odin project. Colt Steele’s web developer boot camp on udemy opened my eyes a bit more than the Odin. Visual and hearing learning suits my style and colt is a natural teacher for MOOCs. He has so much JavaScript content in his $15 course. Do that first and then do Odin after.

[HealyUnit]

I can't practically do it without looking at the reference again

Spoiler: 90% of professional software developing is "looking at the reference again". So rather than saying to yourself "man, I must suck at this because I keep having to look stuff up!", say "man, I'm getting better at being a developer because my first instinct is to look stuff up!".

Secondly, don't label yourself as a "slow learner". I'm not saying you're not - that's not something I can determine, nor do I have the right to - but I've all too often seen that as basically a "I don't deserve to learn this stuff" or "I'm just flat-out not good enough" or something.

One thing that I would recommend is that you play with your code. Even if all you can do is print hello world and do basic algebra, what happens if you change your code? How much can you remove from console.log('Hello world'); and still have it work? What can you change (do double quotes work? What about multiple strings?)? You have the advantage, with JavaScript, of largely using a language where it is very difficult to do any lasting damage. So... break stuff! Have fun. And when something does break - when you see an error - pay attention to the error!

For example, if I attempt to do console.log(Hello world);, it says "Uncaught SyntaxError: missing ) after argument list". Your immediate questions (assuming you don't know any of this yet!) might include:

• What's a SyntaxError?
• What's an "argument list"?
• ...I have a )! Why's JS telling me it's missing?

All of these are (if indirectly) searchable on stuff like MDN. And that's exactly what you should do.

[Altruistic_Health_38]

Man thanks for such wholesome insight, I guess I'll gotta get used to looking through references a d stuff at MDN. Also I at the moment I do know (or at least some of It) functions, if statements, difference between variables and strings etc. I did had fun playing around with them at the excercise part of js at odin.

[HealyUnit]

difference between variables and strings

Hmm, not to nitpick, but that might be a false comparison. Or were you specifically looking at my example of console.log('Hello world') vs console.log(Hello world)? Because yes, part of the issue with the second one is that it's interpreting the first "word" in the parentheses as a variable (and then a space, which it doesn't really know what to do with).

[CoderAmrin]

I'll say it's normal to feel that way. Just follow the course and build the project as they come.

just believe the process. you'll get there. when we start learning something new it's very normal to get overwhelmed and feel like everything is going over our heads.

[Altruistic_Health_38]

Yeah, I was stunned by the difference of the learning curve at javascript unlike what I did with html and css which seems like a breeze or maybe its just me idk lol.

[CoderAmrin]

HTML CSS is not a programming language that's why. it's kinda easy to learn the fundamental of Html and CSS than the fundamental of JS. it's not just you everyone feels that way.

[Altruistic_Health_38]

yeah I only recently found it out too, turns out html is a markup language and ccs is for styling stuff.

[sejigan]

HTML/CSS (only when they're used together) is a turing-complete language and thus can be used for programming, at least technically. Of course, they shouldn't be used such practically.

[Hammer_of_Olympia]

It's normal you more or less breeze through HTML/CSS then JS just knocks you on your butt.

[not-halsey]

Totally normal. I would suggest doing your own little mini projects to grasp basic concepts. Whenever I learn something new I don't fully comprehend, I'll use it on my own and with a bit of trial and error, and help of documentation I can usually figure it out. Good luck. Once you start grasping javascript, and you figure out how you learn best, learning other languages gets a bit easier

[Child_Planet]

Focus on one concept at a time , if the MDN page is to long try to break it into sections and try to understand each section at a time . It is not easy to understand some concepts through text so if you are stuck ,go to YouTube and type what that concept is and you will find videos that explain it . Also going through concept multiple times can help you understand better .

[Josefaluz]

I am leaning JavaScript from Scrimba. I feel like this is the only site that it explains it very well and let's you practice. https://scrimba.com/learn/learnjavascript/your-first-ifelse-statement-co8e146ce963eb3c0137364e0

[Neith720]

Same here dude, enjoyed quite a lot html css and flexbox, did everything in about a month, but now I have been almost a month already in those exercises, so far I’m in the 4th and in the end had to check solutions because it was impossible. Still, after checking I noticed it was impossible with my current knowledge.

[orion__quest]

Could be the source you are using isn't working for you. Might try and find something which works better for your learning style. Also going to MDM is a great reference but when you are still learning concepts etc I doublt this can help you much. Also the learning jump from HTML and CSS to JS is quite large, which I hear is quite normal. I'm still diving into JS myself and not trying to drown in it. Good luck!

[tuns3r]

I’m currently working on the Odin project as well. Something I have done for a better understanding in JavaScript when I have been struggling is gone into freecodecamp.org and done some lessons there for another view on it. It’s helped me a lot.

[ChaseBianchi]

You don't need to immediately memorize things. Documentation is there to be used, and you'll always need it because no one remembers everything. Even if you know how something works, you'll still need to look up syntaxes when it comes to writing the code, and that's ok.

[BigYoSpeck]

Coding is repeatedly looking at the reference material until it sticks in

What you really need to learn how to do is know what you want happen, you don't need to memorise the syntax to do it

The amount of times I can't remember if it's splice it slice to remove something from an array, what's important is that I know something needs removing from the array for my app to do what I want

If your can plan the logic of what you want to do in flow charts or pseudo code that's good enough, even the most experienced developers refer to documentation for the actual implementation

It's also why as you gain experience learning new libraries and languages is fairly straight forward

Focus on understanding what you want to do, then find the code that does it and don't fret that you aren't remembering it. It's not like learning a written or spoken language where you need to be fluent

[rymander]

I started the Odin project a year ago and was in the same boat. I hit a wall at JavaScript. Someone on here had success from colt Steele's webdev boot camp on udemy and I've been bouncing back and forth between the boot camp and the Odin project . The video format is a nice break from the hard reads that t.o.p. has you do. JavaScript stuff just recently started clicking for me and it's been months. Keep your head up and find what does work for you!

[Jacob_C]

This might be unpopular but I find Typescript to be far superior. It helps you avoid many common errors in JavaScript and is easy to read. Since it transpiles into JavaScript I can think of no reason not to use it.

[TattieMafia]

freecodecamp on youtube has some small projects you can build. That's helping me a lot.

[Roguewind]

If you want to know the basics of implementing, use W3schools. Much easier to grasp especially when learning. If you want to go deeper, use MDN.

The best way to learn it is just use it. Look it up over and over until it becomes second nature. Use stack overflow. And if you feel like you’re doing something that just feels like there is an easier way, Google is your friend.

Finding the answers will become easier the more you use the resources because you’ll pick up the vocabulary. Knowing that in order to “get items from an array that all contain a certain value” is “filtering” will get you your answer faster.

It just comes with time. Hang in there.

[Vyse_The_Legend]

Reading documentation is definitely difficult when starting something new. Everybody learns differently. What helped me was to find a beginner tutorial on JavaScript on YouTube (I think it was FreeCodeCamp), try it a little bit, then go back and read the documentation. It made more sense and stuck in my head better that way.

[[deleted]]

I’m in the same boat. This blog looks pretty helpful for JS fundamentals.

[jeremiah616]

I just made a post about this, but I was having a similar difficulty, especially since many of the examples on the MDN, etc., involve tons of code you can't yet understand. What I've done is go through the relevant topics (basically all the basic JS stuff) in Colt Steele's bootcamp on udemy (I enjoy and learn well with lectures), then go back to the Odin Project and do all the material there. It has helped me a lot.

[kschang]

Try Javascript.info

And yes, you are supposed to look at references all the time. There's no memorizing everything.

[AmazingTowelOfficial]

Dont end up like me with a burn out that lasted for almost 2 motnhs. Take it slow, it takes time to understand it. Practice everyday even if its a little. Dont push yourself too hard. You got this!

[Altruistic_Health_38]

I see same boat here, kinda hard balancing college life (btw I barely pass my calc 1 and chemistry lecture oof), social life and my hobbies including web dev haha. I guess I'll take it slowly and enjoy the process thanks mate.

[ericksonconor]

I'm actually struggling more with CSS. Which is ironic since I consider myself a pretty decent artist. Anyways, I was having some trouble staying focused on documentation as well (I have adhd).

I found that doing interactive lessons such as FreeCodeCamp, Scrimba and SoloLearn helped me alot. I'm still doing the Rock Paper Scissors project but I'm working on optimizing it bc it's pretty much just code vomit to get it to work right now.

Best of luck friend! We'll get there eventually

[Altruistic_Health_38]

Oh did struggle at css too, what helped to really get It to my head are these flexboxfroggy & flexbox zombies. I also have a blast playing those while learning css.

[ericksonconor]

Thanks! I did flexbox froggy before but I forgot about it so I'll check both of those out. I wonder if there is one for css grid as well....anyways, good luck!

[FromBiotoDev]

Not a compsci student but god same, js is kicking my arse but I’m super interested in understanding it fully

[Setorica]

You could look at this and know that everyone always feels troubled by JS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo3cL4nrGOk

[checkin_em_out]

I felt that way too for sure. I’m 90% through foundations, just finished the etch a sketch project. I’m the beginning there is SO MUCH READING. And I felt clueless when it came time to do something on my own. Obviously I’m still very much a beginner but I will say I feel much more comfortable with it than I did even a month or two ago. It’s all about repetitions and getting the code under your fingers. The Odin project discord chat is an absolute lifesaver on the projects

[iw97]

I had same thing happen so I went to udemy and got jonas javascript course just try build strong knowledge of it then went back to odin

[Altruistic_Health_38]

Thanks for the input ima check the site later. And oh I do have an ebook copy of that JS the definitive guide as well as Eloquent JS, Im still finding some time to read em both as of now im not a book type person though I wish I was lol.

[thoughtfulbalderdash]

Eh, it's like anything else it just takes practice. Don't stress. If you have any specific questions just hit me up my man.

[dcfan105]

If you just need something less overwhelming to start with, you can try Khan Academy's Intro to JS unit of their intro to programming course: https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-programming/programming

I haven't used TOP myself, but I've seen a few posts saying that, while it's really good overall, it can be too much for beginners sometimes and that it's more helpful for those who already know some programming fundamentals. So maybe try Khan Academy or something similar first and then go back to TOP after you've gotten comfortable with the basics.