If you’re looking at how to get a job as a full-stack developer, you’ve most likely realized that JavaScript is a big deal.
Before we talk about JavaScript and why you should learn it, let’s quickly point out that JavaScript is not the same thing as Java. You might even see it called ECMAScript or ES, too.
But back to JavaScript programming. As the internet grew, websites required much more interactivity, and JavaScript began to grow to the point that right now, we can use it on both the front end and the back end. Working on both these parts of a website is the job of a full-stack JavaScript developer.
JavaScript is great and rewarding as a first programming language, and is very useful for any developer. Let’s explore three things that will make learning JavaScript easier and help us to keep a positive mindset towards learning it.
Understanding HTML and CSS is a great help
Technically, this doesn’t have anything to do with JavaScript, but when working on web development, then knowing HTML and CSS will make everything easier. Knowledge of these two languages will also help you understand JavaScript and web development concepts.
The reason for this is that any website or application is first an HTML document. JavaScript will help us interact with the different elements here, and this will be much easier if you understand HTML. Luckily it’s not hard!
While CSS might be a bit more intimidating, especially for those more interested in the logical side of web development, it’s a lot of fun. You don’t have to be a genius designer, just understand how CSS changes the look of a website and how selectors and rules work.
A fundamental but solid understanding of HTML and CSS will make your learning of JavaScript so much easier.
Manipulating the DOM is fun
Manipulating the DOM is what really makes JavaScript so special. But what is the DOM anyway? The DOM (Document Object Model) is a hierarchy or tree formed by all of the HTML elements in your site, with some elements containing other elements inside.
We use JavaScript to interact with the DOM, allowing us to traverse it, modify each element of the website, and customize it to make it our own. This is why understanding HTML and CSS is so useful in your journey to learn JavaScript.
Once you’ve learned how to manipulate the DOM, you can do all sorts of things with this knowledge. Thanks to this, we can use events, such as a mouse click, a screen touch, or a page scroll to add functionality and interactivity to websites and applications.
Frameworks and libraries are JavaScript basics
Whether you have already learnt the basics of JavaScript programming, or you are still deciding your best way to learn it, the chances are you’ve already encountered frameworks and libraries, such as React, Vue, and Angular.
They are amazing and can really take JavaScript to the next level. Oddly, they are all themselves built with JavaScript.
Why does this matter? It doesn’t mean that we have to go ahead and make our own framework, these exist for a reason and are great. However, in order to fully appreciate what they do for us, it is a good idea to actually understand plain JavaScript first.
After you know how to manipulate the DOM with vanilla JavaScript, you can start looking for a framework. To learn more about these frameworks, take a look at our Web Development with JavaScript program. We have bootcamps online and on-campus and full-time and part-time to fit around any schedule.