Introduction to JavaScript.

Frontend programming usually involves HTML, CSS, and Javascript, along with other frameworks like Bootstrap, Tailwind, React, etc. Usually, we begin by learning how to make the skeleton of the website using HTML and move forward to learning how to beautify the website using CSS. Finally, Javascript usually involves "breathing life into the website". Most of the time, Javascript is the most difficult to learn and understand. We find that many developers spend months, sometimes years, trying to grasp the concept of Javascript. Unfortunately, without a proper understanding of Javascript and its concepts, React and other frameworks will be frustrating to grasp as well.

One of the many issues that people face when learning Javascript is the inability to find adequate and factual resources that give straightforward tutorials. Some online tutors who are simply interested in gaining traffic and views on their pages go ahead to tell upcoming developers that they can learn Javascript in 2 hours. This can be very misleading because the tutor ends up rushing through these concepts, thereby confusing the student. The truth is that Javascript takes time to master, it takes deliberate effort and dedication to fully master all the concepts in Javascript.

What Exactly is Javascript?

According to MDN Docs, Javascript is a scripting language that enables you to create dynamically updating content, control multimedia, animate images, and pretty much everything else. As earlier stated, it is the part of coding that makes the website responsive.

How So?

With HTML and CSS, the website looks beautiful and ready to go, but not just yet. Javascript allows manipulation of the website by the developer and allows for complex operations such as maths operations, advanced animations, functional buttons and forms, etc which allow the end user to easily navigate the website.

Why Do We Need Javascript?

Honestly, most experienced developers use CSS to create animations and push the complexity of a website. However, it is not always enough. With Javascript, there are tons of activities we can do through coding such as storing values in variables, that can be reused in the future.

For example,

let name = "Kosisochukwu Obidiegwu"

console.log(name)

Using variables such as const, let, and var, we can store these values and use them later on in the code.

Javascript also comes useful in combining different pieces of information through concatenation. Using concatenation saves the stress of rewriting values again when we want to combine information.

For Example,

let firstName = "Kosisochukwu";
let lastName = "Obidiegwu";

let fullName = firstName + lastName;
console.log(fullName);

As earlier said, math objects assist us to complete mathematical operations. There are tons of operations we can cover using math objects in Javascript. These range from addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, exponential etc. Javascript features as this come in handy when developers intend to build calculators, gaming platforms, and other web applications that require mathematical calculations.

For Example,

const sum = 9 + 7;
console.log(sum);

const product = 6 * 8;
console.log(product);

const quotient = 4 / 2;
console.log(quotient);

There are diverse operations we can perform with Javascript to give more meaning to the websites that we build. Throughout the series of articles that I will publish about Javascript, we will cover various concepts in Javascript using examples and exercises that help to build muscle memory.

Exercises

1. What do you understand by the term 'Javascript'?

2. Is it reasonable to learn Javascript within 1 hour 45 minutes?

3. What are some of the things we can do using Javascript?

Thank you for reading. See you soon.....