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JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

exploringjs.com

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Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#21

Post by smoldesu »

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…

I think this strategy works for just about every language but Javascript. Last week I was trying to learn JS with this method and it sucked, almost exclusively because there is so much content to sift through that it's difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. Reading the documentation, while not particularly glorious, is the most time-efficient method of learning a language in my experience.

Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#22

Post by mrkentutbabi »

I really don't understand why people hate JS so much. I myself a primarily a JS dev, and now a TS dev. TS made the experience so much so much better. JS is like pretty much a programming language for average software engineer like me. Sure, JS build system is a pain. I am the go to build system guy for almost every company I've been with, I worked with Grunt, Gulp, Webpack 1,2,3,4 and etc and yes I hate it, but other than that it works really well. If you don't touch frontend you can pretty much forget build system entirely. npm init is so easy.

Async is easy as well. I really don't understand the hate, what am I missing? Maybe I'm too dumb for other programming languages. I did try various languages from Java, Elixir, Haskell, Rust, Go, Ruby, Python and JS is simply the best in productivity, expressiveness, ease of use and performance balance.

As long as you don't code in a clusterfuck way, it is so easy to write JS and compose JS functions. Just use functions everywhere, no need class. JS is very readable.

Like, seriously, Python has Python2 vs Python3 package and build/deployment problem. Haskell is difficult and the tooling is abysmal. Rust is difficult and too much choices to just write this and that. Ruby has no tpe system and slower than JS. Python is also slower, no good async, and its type system is not expressive as TS. Go's type system isn't expressive enough. Java type system is too much and JVM is complicated. Scala is complicated.

JS/TS is:

- simple/easy to use

- pays the bills (you can go anywhere and find jobs as JS/TS dev in almost every company in the world)

- everywhere, like from IoT to robotics to game development to server to frontend to regular scripts

- easy programming language to do Leetcode style interview as well

- if you wanna do Option/Maybe style error handling like Haskell/Rust/Go you can do that with TS, just wrap try catch and return the error with neverthrow library. This makes TS programming bliss!!! I freaking love it

If you don't want to care about setting up NodeJS + TS, now you have Deno, who's pretty much out of the box everything just works.

JS/TS is such a super boring language it feels like cheating your way out of software engineering. It is a language made for dumb people like me, maybe that's why it has no appeal for hardcore programmers.

I owe to JS/TS on changing my life and giving me a good living.

Like, seriously I don't understand the hate...

Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#23

Post by Waterluvian »

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…

100%

And the most important advice, in my opinion, is to expect to write a LOT of garbage code that you replace almost immediately. It’s not like pouring concrete. You’re not wasting your time or code. It’s a learning process and once you’ve written it, you’ve absorbed all the good and bad lessons from it.

I struggled a lot with paralysis where I refused to even begin a project until I could see the “right way” to get to the finish line. But now I just do a tiny little bit of design (for toys and personal projects) and then dive in.

There’s no better way to deeply understand why a certain concept is important than doing it wrong and suffering the consequences.

Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#24

Post by divbzero »

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…

Another great source for up-to-date info on getting started are tutorials from official docs. Most mature projects will on them.

Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#25

Post by post-it »

DonHopkins wrote: post #11
jmnicolas wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Which is better than thinking you know what you don't know. The most important thing impatient programmers need to learn is TO NOT BE IMPATIENT, not how to learn a programming language in X minutes. Learning patience will help you in all aspects of life. Do you really want to share the road with somebody who learned to drive in 5 minutes, and doesn't have the patience not to speed, tailgate, run stop signs, red light…

> Need to use a library? Then first read the documentation, then read the source code, so you actually understand what it can do, how it does it, that it's not magic, what its limitations are, how to use it, and if you actually need it.

That's the opposite of thread OP's advice. If you need to use a library and you're impatient, find the closest example to what you want to do and then hack away at it until it does what you want.

Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#26

Post by bigyikes »

mrkentutbabi wrote: post #22

I really don't understand why people hate JS so much. I myself a primarily a JS dev, and now a TS dev. TS made the experience so much so much better. JS is like pretty much a programming language for average software engineer like me. Sure, JS build system is a pain. I am the go to build system guy for almost every company I've been with, I worked with Grunt, Gulp, Webpack 1,2,3,4 and etc and yes I hate it, but other…

I think a lot of JS haters haven’t spent much time with modern JS. That’s how it was for me, at least. I would laugh at JS wat-isms and think back to the old days of jQuery spaghetti. Python was my favorite language.

Now I’m a full time JS/TS developer and I love the language. It’s a dream to use. The syntax is concise and logical, the ecosystem is vibrant, and the barrier to entry is low. I wish there was more JS in the scientific, CV, and ML spaces — Python is still superior here, imo — but otherwise JS is my go to. It’s no wonder we see the rise of Electron apps - the developer experience is just so much better.

Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#28

Post by DonHopkins »

post-it wrote: post #25
DonHopkins wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is better than thinking you know what you don't know. The most important thing impatient programmers need to learn is TO NOT BE IMPATIENT, not how to learn a programming language in X minutes. Learning patience will help you in all aspects of life. Do you really want to share the road with somebody who learned to drive in 5 minutes, and doesn't have the patience not to speed, tailgate, run stop signs, red light…

> Need to use a library? Then first read the documentation, then read the source code, so you actually understand what it can do, how it does it, that it's not magic, what its limitations are, how to use it, and if you actually need it. That's the opposite of thread OP's advice. If you need to use a library and you're impatient, find the closest example to what you want to do and then hack away at it until it does wh…

It's an elaboration of his advice, not the opposite. Please be patient enough to read all of the OP's advice:

>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.

>My general advice: consult official docs whenever possible

After you read the official docs, and decide you actually want to use a library for something that's not trivial, one-off, or throw-away, it will benefit you to actually read the source code itself, which is by definition not out-of-date and incomplete, like so many of the articles about the library you can find by googling and reading stack overflow.

In my book, hacking away at using a library until it does what you want involves reading the source code in the developer tools by setting breakpoints and browsing the call stack, function definitions, local variables, and data structures, while the code is alive and running.

Once you've done that, it's a lot more interesting and easier to then read the entire source code on github front to back, to learn the library well, because you will have a lot more context about how it's actually used and fits together, its dynamic runtime behavior, and the shape and texture of its objects and data structures.

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