Ask HN: Changing my mind about JavaScript

I'm a longtime developer software developer with statically typed languages, in the last few weeks i started working on a couple javascript projects and i must say that i'm changing my mind about javascript, albeit i still think that for bigger project relying on statically typed languages is a better and safer path, i think that JS deserve a chance to be "really" learned, i'm not referring following the dozens of tutorial we find online that are pure crap (using dozens on stuping npm packages or using pre-cocked solutions without really understanding it's full potential).

Do you have any tip for learning js at it's fundamentals? internals, advanced patterns and everything that can relate to understand it in deep?

I have used many languages in my nearly 40 years as a programmer (Scheme, C++, Java, Python, Haskell, OCaml, Rust, etc.) and still enjoy JavaScript: It’s decent as a language and there is so much you can do with it.

Tips:

• If you like static typing, you’ll want to use TypeScript. It’s more work to set up, but it catches many bugs, especially subtle ones where JavaScript’s semantics are not intuitive.

• I learned a lot about JavaScript (and Node.js) by writing shell scripts in Node.js.

My books on JavaScript, TypeScript and Node.js shell scripting are free to read online and target people who already know how to program: https://exploringjs.com

I love JavaScript, been programming for more than 16 years now. Built websites, apps, banking portals, chat bots and customer experience software using Js, React, Redux and TypeScript. Also used Java and currently work on Go lang. Even after using every language I still prefer JS to be my everyday work love language. Its better now and improving too.

I think the best way to understand/appreciate javascript as a language is to A) separate it from the DOM, and B) take a functional programming focus

Too many times, when people complain about javascript, what they are really complaining about is the hectic nature of web development. You have three trillion dollar companies (Google/Chrome, Microsoft/Edge, Apple/Safari) actively fighting over agreed upon standards for how the dom is rendered and manipulated. Try and learn any language in that environment, and you'll have a very frustrating time

Why functional programming? Javascript was one of the earlier mainstream languages to support passing around functions as first class citizens, and it's often an aspect of the language that gets downplayed. By and large, javascript sits at the sweet spot of allowing you to do cool functional programming concepts, without all the strictness and verbosity of a language like Haskell. Is that a good thing? It depends, obviously. But for the sake of "Change my mind", this is where I bet you'll start looking at it in a different light

I'm not saying it's the best/one-true language. It's just another cool tool to have on your tool belt

I mean why not use Typescript and have both?

Projects don't have to become very large at all before static types are better & more productive than dynamic types. Especially for multi-person projects, or ones that last for a while so you forget stuff.