June 26, 2017

How I am learning JavaScript;

Lately I have been trying to learn all I can about JavaScript. Coming from a background of .Net it was a little troublesome at first because lets face it JavaScript was a pain when I started learning it and it was a chore at best. Within the past year I have begun embracing it and all its odd complexities. Now I am just fascinated with its flexibility and popularity. Here are some of the ways I am learning it.

Learning by solving real-world problems;

I was trying to decide how I can get some real-world JavaScript code out there when I came across Fiverr.com. I want to eventually create a side business and this was my first real attempt to “get out there” and do some work. So I decided to go full in on Fiverr and I did for a few months then I had to stop using it because of personal reasons. I learned so much by working on small tasks in Google apps like Google Sheets, which uses JavaScript as its scripting language.

• Google Sheets Tutorials - This is Google’s site for learning scripting in Sheets. Great resource.
• Drive Bunny - I used this site a lot when I was working consistently in Google Sheets and needed some quick answers.
• Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal - This guy is a genius and has a lot of great work out there to share with the world, go here if you want answers! He has built lots of useful tools to use all over.

Tutorials/Videos;

• Advanced Javascript - Kyle Simpson - I enjoyed this video series by Kyle and I highly recommend watching it.
• Javascript Fundamentals - Rithm School- This is a great source to learn from as they have lots of videos and examples to learn from. They also have a github repo setup with questions and answers to go thru.
• Practical Javascript by Gordon Zhu - I love Gordon’s teaching style as he relays all his information in an easy to understand way. I learned a lot by following along with him on learning practical JavaScript. I really like his workflow as well, he goes thru many iterations and refactoring of his code.
• JavaScript 30 - Wes Bos - This free course is a gold mine of great tutorials and real-world examples. Filled with lots of DOM manipulation and ES6 techniques. Wes is a great teacher and showed me a lot of ways to constructively look at my coding.
• Scott Hanselman’s JavaScript & the Rise of the Virtual Machine - This is the video(which I was there live) that really opened my eyes to the possibilities of JavaScript and also the power that it has. Highly Recommend watching this video if you have spare time.
• JavaScript Jabber - I listen to this podcast every week and its essential to get the latest and greatest js.
• Functional Programming in JavaScript - Mattias Johansson - I loved this course as it was my first attempt to learn some functional programming. Mattias is silly and has a great sense of humor in teaching his style.

Blogging solutions/ideas/tutorials;

I am going to be blogging about all things that I have learned on my journey and this is helping me to realize that it can only help me on my own journey of learning JavaScript. So I will be posting more on here to help anyone out there like all these other people helped me work thru my problems. Giving back is essential to learn and contribute to the community.