How to Become a Great JavaScript Developer

I cringe when I see Java/C++ style code in JavaScript. Unfortunately it's how most JS coders write code.

The biggest part is the ability to move a large part of the necessary skillset to your unconscious mind. As a joke Capablanca said "I only see one move ahead, but it is always the best one", this is how every strong chess player thinks, they can instantly evaluate the position. It is just like once you have learned to drive well, you would recognize a potentially dangerous situation(a child playing with a ball on a sidewalk) without actually thinking about it consciously.

I believe this is how the best programmers work too, they have an immediate grasp of possible techniques they can apply without necessarily thinking about them or looking them up in google.

You become great at your craft when you internalize/obtain unconscious mastery of a large number of techniques in your craft. You become truly great when you can combine these techniques in novel ways.

I will mostly speak about chess, because I am an average programmer and average mathematician but am a pretty good chess player near IM strength FM (2350) and have spoken to various strong chess players (up to 2700) on this subject.

There have been players who have become very strong with very little reading (GM Flohr is a famous example from 1930s) but with a lot of playing, however I am not aware of anyone who become good without practice.

So let's start with a simple example. You must absolutely learn how the pieces move, this would be equivalent to what loops and conditionals are in a programming language. If you have to think how the horsie jumps when playing, you are not going to get very far.

A more complicated example, it is very useful to be aware of the standard h7/h2 sacrifice. As you get stronger, you develop a better sense on when this sacrifice will be strong and when it will be likely fail, even before starting to calculate consciously.

How do you obtain this knowledge, the best way is iterative by playing and applying in practice what you learned.

As a martial artist and weight lifter that totally makes sense - practice, sparring, doing the actual activity is what will make you good. The more you do it, the more you train your subconscious to intuitively know what to do.

As an engineer and tutor it only applies in a limited way. I have taught people who want to learn programming but lack all sorts of fundamentals. What they need to do is just go back to basics - read a book - do the exercises. I find that as an adult learner missing the basic background on things just makes everything hard. You will need to ask questions every step of the way. Who will be on hand to answer those questions? People like me, who have sat down and studied the basics and learned from first principles, i.e. worked through the books.

Coding is like math. Both practice and theory are important. If you don't read the chapter first and try to jump right into the exercises, you will not be able to do them properly. If you read the chapter but do not do the exercises, then you will forget everything you've read.