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JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

exploringjs.com

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Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#81

Post by mrkentutbabi »

bigyikes wrote: post #26
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…

Same, I really want JS to have ML ecosystem like Python as well.

Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#82

Post by mrkentutbabi »

ratorx wrote: post #50
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 don’t like JS and try to avoid it wherever possible. I have written some, but I’m not an expert by any means. My problems with JS/TS: Simple to start, but hard to program robustly and defensively. Due to the lack of typing, a lot of the codebases I’ve seen end up with extensive input validation code, which often uses fancy tricks that are hard to parse (unless you already know them). Typescript helps with this, but…

Yeah I’ve seen really bad functional closures over the course of my career as well. But this just shows more of the developers’ skill than the language.

Btw it sounds like you might like Deno. Have you given it a try?

Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#83

Post by mrkentutbabi »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #67
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 hate JS because I’ve tried Ruby. JS just feels unnecessarily verbose and noisy.

Interestingly Ruby was my first programming language but it was JS who made programming clicked for me. I think it is the curly braces. It helped my mind compartmentalize stuffs.

Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#84

Post by mym1990 »

mrkentutbabi wrote: post #80
seumars wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the JS criticism is more about the culture and ecosystem than the language itself. In short: Most if not all JS devs are more interested in playing with specific tools and APIs rather than dealing with and/or implementing programming patterns and principles. In the last decade "small modules" skyrocketed the popularity of NPM and a lot of people pushed the idea of "don't reinvent the wheel just 'npm install…

What is a meta framework? This is the first time I heard this term.

I am thinking it is a framework that allows ease of interface with other frameworks, bundled up into one nice package/product?

Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#85

Post by 0x0nyandesu »

chii wrote: post #74
0x0nyandesu wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Googling how to install nodejs you'll end up with a bunch of nonsense from how to manually set it up to how to do it using some OS specific thing that won't work right when you need to upgrade and everything in between when the best practice is installing 'n' which is a node version manager and does everything for you.

if you hadn't experienced the pain of differing versions of node, you will not understand why having a node version manager is useful. So nothing will replace the experience of pain when learning.

When I onboard new hires I tell them to install it using n and all the instructions give you version numbers because our mobile app, unit tests, and webpack among other things have minimums so the pain is readily apparent but I make it a non issue with clear and concise install docs.

Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#86

Post by tartoran »

gmiller123456 wrote: post #73

For people who have taken the time to read it, or taken enough time to evaluate it: is there really anything in this book that would appeal to "impatient programmers"? From what I've looked at, it seems to be a fairly typical programming book, and I fear the title might be deceptive.

From what I gather it has a good table of contents from which you can jump to the section you’re intetested and ignore the rest. That’s good for an inpatient dev who needs to learn what they need at the moment of the inquiry.

Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#87

Post by thealig »

wruza wrote: post #38
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 always found this way too clumsy, because you learn X but accidentally miss Y, and X becomes your tool of choice at places where it doesn’t really fits best or at all. Javascript traditionally had NO good language guides, and this one looks pretty like the one you should read in advance. Other resources are either more library reference-like, very situative or for unclear standard, not exhaustive, or just stupid an…

yes, there are a lot of half baked guides and blog posts out there about JS. there are a couple which are really good: https://javascript.info/ - explains good ES6 practices https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS which goes in depth in the messy core of the language.

nowadays I usually refer to MDN docs and one of the guides like above when guidance is needed.

Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#88

Post by zerocount »

Lamad123 wrote: post #42
wruza wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always found this way too clumsy, because you learn X but accidentally miss Y, and X becomes your tool of choice at places where it doesn’t really fits best or at all. Javascript traditionally had NO good language guides, and this one looks pretty like the one you should read in advance. Other resources are either more library reference-like, very situative or for unclear standard, not exhaustive, or just stupid an…

Start with Javascrip, the Good Parts .

For beginners, this is the last book to start with. I'm a big fan of Doug Crockford, but this book is opinionated and the examples are often not well explained.

Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#89

Post by emodendroket »

Lamad123 wrote: post #40
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…

You cannot just google your way through it. There are times when you don't even know what to google. I remember as an early beginner being stuck with something that had to do with closures. I had no idea what was going on and didn't know what to google and when I asked questions on stackoverflow and reddit please started saying things about decorators and whatnot!!! It is only when I sat down and went through some ki…

If you're new to programming, yeah. If you're an experienced programmer, and you've used multiple languages, you're more likely to just write something that's not idiomatic than to get totally lost like that.

Re: JavaScript for Impatient Programmers

#90

Post by bern4444 »

ironmagma wrote: post #77
bern4444 wrote: post #75

What I like about JS is I can write nearly everything with const. Functions are const, data is const, and I rarely use classes. It removes a lot of overhead, avoids this questions, and makes everything consistent and so makes spotting similarities and differences easier. I can do const myFunc = () => 2; const res = myFunc(); It helps with the mindset of treating functions as data that can be acted upon similar to how…

Yes, but it’s with the caveat that (like C++) const does not mean that the whole value is constant. It doesn’t even really mean any part of the value is constant necessarily, just that the symbol cannot be reassigned. I don’t know that it eliminates that many questions, but it does eliminate one question, which is whether that variable will be reassigned. Arguably that doesn’t tell you very much.

Its more for style true, but I also try to avoid directly modifying an object's properties and values.
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