JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#1

Post by arkj » Fri, Dec 24, 2021, 12:54 PM UTC

JavaScript for Impatient Programmers
exploringjs.com

Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#2

Post by Nullinker » Fri, Dec 24, 2021, 1:33 PM UTC

Very nice and comprehensive resource. I don't consider myself impatient but appreciate the high information density and the ability to quickly skip past the parts that I already know and actually learned a few new things.

Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#3

Post by jmnicolas » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 6:48 PM UTC

Nullinker wrote: post #2

Very nice and comprehensive resource. I don't consider myself impatient but appreciate the high information density and the ability to quickly skip past the parts that I already know and actually learned a few new things.

If I was impatient to learn JS I would gasp at the number of chapters (45)!

Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#4

Post by ryannevius » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 6:48 PM UTC

A resource I commonly turn to when I’m feeling impatient is Learn X in Y Minutes: https://learnxinyminutes.com/

Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#5

Post by DonHopkins » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 6:59 PM UTC

ryannevius wrote: post #4

A resource I commonly turn to when I’m feeling impatient is Learn X in Y Minutes: https://learnxinyminutes.com/

That's a great resource, but not a miracle cure for ignorance or magic pill for knowledge and skill.

If you're actually serious about learning to program, then it's going to take more than a few minutes of your life to learn.

But if you can't stomach investing more than a few minutes in learning to program in JavaScript or any other programming language, then you should really find something else do to with your extremely limited time.

Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years, by Peter Norvig:

https://norvig.com/21-days.html

The last time I posted a link to this important essay, impatient people who weren't very serious about investing any time in learning or reading simply and immediately responded to the title, but didn't bother to actually follow the link or read and respond to any of Peter Norvig's brilliant essay (and probably didn't even know who he was), so here is an excerpt.

>Researchers (Bloom (1985), Bryan & Harter (1899), Hayes (1989), Simmon & Chase (1973)) have shown it takes about ten years to develop expertise in any of a wide variety of areas, including chess playing, music composition, telegraph operation, painting, piano playing, swimming, tennis, and research in neuropsychology and topology. The key is deliberative practice: not just doing it again and again, but challenging yourself with a task that is just beyond your current ability, trying it, analyzing your performance while and after doing it, and correcting any mistakes. Then repeat. And repeat again. There appear to be no real shortcuts: even Mozart, who was a musical prodigy at age 4, took 13 more years before he began to produce world-class music. In another genre, the Beatles seemed to burst onto the scene with a string of #1 hits and an appearance on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964. But they had been playing small clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg since 1957, and while they had mass appeal early on, their first great critical success, Sgt. Peppers, was released in 1967.

This essay is a classic that's been discussed on HN numerous times:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27411276

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20543495

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16574248

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5519158

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3439772

Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#6

Post by ai_ia » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 7:07 PM UTC

DonHopkins wrote: post #5

ryannevius wrote: post #4

A resource I commonly turn to when I’m feeling impatient is Learn X in Y Minutes: https://learnxinyminutes.com/

That's a great resource, but not a miracle cure for ignorance or magic pill for knowledge and skill. If you're actually serious about learning to program, then it's going to take more than a few minutes of your life to learn. But if you can't stomach investing more than a few minutes in learning to program in JavaScript or any other programming language, then you should really find something else do to with your extr…

This essay, which has helped fixing my initial mindset a lot, is directed for complete beginners.

The website OP mentions is for someone who already knows how to program well in one or more language and want to take a quick look at another language syntax.

Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#7

Post by armchairhacker » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 7:12 PM UTC

My "real" advice for impatient programmers: just start programming, and every time you encounter a problem google it.

Don't know how to setup node.js? Google should lead you to `npm init` or a starter. Getting some weird syntax error? Google it. Once you learn the basics, want to do X? Google it and determine a) how to do X, or b) if X can't be done / is bad practice.

Just by diving head-first into whatever you're trying to accomplish (or a toy project if you just want to learn), eventually you'll start to get the hand of syntax, libraries, and general programming style. But read articles every once in a while on best practices so you aren't learning the "wrong" way to do things.

The big drawback is that there are a lot of Google results that are outdated, novice, or flat-out wrong. You have to really learn how to do research on the internet. But this is a skill you should learn because you can apply it to anything. My general advice: consult official docs whenever possible; Stack Overflow is reliable but check the answer's comments to see if it's outdated; use Reddit to compare X vs. Y; try to avoid long wordy articles on bloated sites, generally the better the writer = the better the article and more likely it's accurate.

Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#8

Post by jmnicolas » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 7:29 PM UTC

armchairhacker wrote: post #7

My "real" advice for impatient programmers: just start programming, and every time you encounter a problem google it. Don't know how to setup node.js? Google should lead you to `npm init` or a starter. Getting some weird syntax error? Google it. Once you learn the basics, want to do X? Google it and determine a) how to do X, or b) if X can't be done / is bad practice. Just by diving head-first into whatever you're tr…

The problem with this method is that you don't know what you don't know.

Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#9

Post by DonHopkins » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 7:30 PM UTC

ai_ia wrote: post #6

DonHopkins wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a great resource, but not a miracle cure for ignorance or magic pill for knowledge and skill. If you're actually serious about learning to program, then it's going to take more than a few minutes of your life to learn. But if you can't stomach investing more than a few minutes in learning to program in JavaScript or any other programming language, then you should really find something else do to with your extr…

This essay, which has helped fixing my initial mindset a lot, is directed for complete beginners. The website OP mentions is for someone who already knows how to program well in one or more language and want to take a quick look at another language syntax.

Titles like "Learn X in Y minutes" fool impatient people who don't take the time to follow links or read more than titles into believing the incorrect notion that it's possible to do what the title promises. They never get around to reading the actual articles or disclaimers that it actually takes a long time and a lot of practice to become proficient or even competent in a programming language.

Then they think they can learn programming languages by reading Twitter instead of writing code, and claim on their resumes they know languages they've only read a few blog posts about.

Those are the same people who complain that they hate Lisp by parroting tweets that it has "too many parenthesis", even though other languages have much more complex syntax, much less powerful and more limited and difficult to use macros and meta-programming facilities (like C macros and C++ templates), that force you to use an ugly mish-mash of even more inconsistent punctuation line noise like brackets, braces, escapes, quotes, backquotes, obscure operator precedence and ad-hoc parsing rules, and a myriad of other hard-to-learn punctuation that makes the code much less readable than Lisp, without realizing that there is actually a point to Lisp's clean simple parenthetical syntax.

There's also a long sad history of impatient people not wanting to bother learning JavaScript, but believing that they can simply learn JQuery or React or some other popular "silver bullet" library instead:

Can you get away with learning jQuery only instead of JavaScript?

https://www.quora.com/Can-you-get-away-with-learning-jQuery-...

Should I learn jQuery first or Javascript?

https://www.quora.com/Should-I-learn-jQuery-first-or-Javascr...

Is it necessary to learn JavaScript before learning jQuery? [duplicate]

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3183545/is-it-necessary-...

Why You Should Learn jQuery Before JavaScript

https://learn.onemonth.com/why-you-should-learn-jquery-befor...

Why Beginners Should not Learn JavaScript through jQuery

https://www.codementor.io/javascript/tutorial/learn-jquery-j...

Do I need to know JavaScript in order to learn jQuery?

https://www.quora.com/Do-I-need-to-know-JavaScript-in-order-...