Is the new world of JavaScript confusing or intimidating? I thought so, and recorded a video course how to feel better

JavaScript used to be easy. Misunderstood, but easy. All you had to do was take a text editor and add some code to an HTML document in a SCRIPT element to enhance it. After a few years of confusion, we standardised the DOM. JavaScript became more predictable. AJAX was the next hype and it wasn’t quite as defined as we’d like it to be. Then we had jQuery because the DOM was too convoluted. Then we got dozens of other libraries and frameworks to make things “easier”. When Node came to be we moved server side with JavaScript. And these days we replaced the DOM with a virtual one. JavaScript has types, classes and convenience methods.

JavaScript is everywhere and it is the hottest topic. This can be confusing and overwhelming for new and old developers. “JavaScript fatigue” is a common term for that and it can make us feel bad about our knowledge. Am I outdated? Am I too slow to keep up? Which one of the dozens of things JavaScript can do is my job? What if I don’t understand them or have no fun doing them?

It is easy to be the grumpy old developer that discards everything new and shiny as unreliable. And it is far too often that we keep talking about the good old days. I wanted to find a way to get excited about what’s happening. I see how happy new, unencumbered developers are playing with hot new tech. I remembered that I was like that.

That’s why I recorded a Skillshare class about JavaScript and how to deal with the changes it went through.

In about an hour of videos you learn what JavaScript is these days, how to deal with the hype and – more importantly – what great advances happened to the language and the ecosystem.

Here’s me explaining what we’ll cover:

The videos are the following. We deliberately kept them short. A huge benefit of this course is to discover your own best way of working whilst watching them. It is a “try things out while you watch” kind of scenario:

• Introduction (01:46) – introducing you to the course, explaining what we will cover and who it is for.
• JavaScript today (08:41) – JavaScript isn’t writing a few lines of code to make websites snazzier any longer. It became a huge platform for all kinds of development.
• Uses for JavaScript (06:25) – a more detailed view on what JavaScript does these days. And how the different uses come with different best practices and tooling.
• Finding JavaScript Zen (04:15) – how can you stay calm in this new JavaScript world where everything is “amazing”? How can you find out what makes sense to you and what is hype?
• Evolved Development Environments (10:22) – all you need to write JavaScript is a text editor and all to run it a browser. But that’s also limiting you more than you think.
• Benefits of Good Editors (12:34) – by using a good editor, people who know JavaScript can become much more effective. New users of JavaScript avoid making mistakes that aren’t helpful to their learning.
• Version Control (09:15) – using version control means you write understandable code. And it has never been easier to use Git.
• Debugging to Linting (06:01) – debugging has been the first thing to get right to make JavaScript a success. But why find out why something went wrong when you can avoid making the mistake?
• Keeping Current in JavaScript (05:11) – JavaScript moves fast and it can be tricky to keep up with that is happening. It can also be a real time-sink to fall for things that sound amazing but have no life-span.
• Finding the JavaScript Community (03:59) – it is great that you know how to write JavaScript. Becoming part of a community is a lot more rewarding though.
• Asking for Help (05:47) – gone are the days of writing posts explaining what your coding problem is. By using interactive tools you can give and get help much faster.
• Final Thoughts (01:11) – thanks for taking the course, how may we help you further?

I wrote this to make myself more content and happy in this demanding world, and I hope it helps you, too. Old-school developers will find things to try out and new developers should get a sensible way to enter the JavaScript world.