JavaScript for the Amateurs

A Guide to get started with JavaScript

If you are reading this then you are probably a dynamic individual who thinks that underneath everything, is an object? That’s cool, I like to dream as well. On that note, I’ll be starting off with a brief introduction about JavaScript and if you didn’t get this joke at this point, don’t worry you will, but first let me introduce you to JavaScript.

So, it was around the time when windows 95 came out, at this point of time HTML websites were all form and no function, and even if one wanted to retrieve some data they had to search for or calculate something or a task needing some other kind functionality then that website had to send that request to data servers and it was in that data server that all the computation and business logic happened and then it would return the web page which contains all the data.

Sounds a bit too much work right?

It gets better though, a team at Netscape envisioned a future where the web was more dynamic with all the cool animation and more user interaction which could work on the fly. And in order to enable this you need to remove the server and have the code be able to run on your browser itself (that’s how basically the internet works today, you put up a HTTP request and in return you get data fetched from the server in the form of HTML ,CSS and Javascript files which ultimately runs on your browser). So, to enable this there was a requirement of a small scripting language which should be simple and had to be really easy so that even a non-developer could understand it . So within 10 days a guy named Brendan Eich created JavaScript. And today, I cannot imagine a world where we do not use JavaScript.

Alright, wanna do something fun?

• Open your Chrome Browser on your computer and then disable JavaScript
• Open Chrome Browser -> Settings (in right most top corner open those 3 dots) -> Site Settings -> Navigate to JavaScript Allowed.
• Disable it, then look at some websites you’ll probably get my point, now.

Screenshot showing enabling JavaScript in Chrome Settings

Now, moving on to the more interesting part. Writing JavaScript is pretty simple, you can get started right away!

• Just open your browser and right click on the screen.
• Choose the option Inspect Elements from the pop-up menu.
• Change it to Console then simply type this alert :- (“Hello! world”)
• Press Enter.
• That sums it up, you have written your first code using JavaScript. Yes, it is that simple!

Screenshot showing “Hello World!”

JavaScript is basically a prototype based programming language which is a kind of object-oriented approach where classes are not explicitly defined but rather derived by adding properties and methods to instances of another class or less frequently, adding them to an empty object. So, in simple words this type of style allows the creation of objects without first defining its class. And that explains my joke :P

Here are some resources I find really incredible!

1. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2md4HQNRqJA&list=PLRAV69dS1uWSxUIk5o3vQY2-_VKsOpXLD (this one is absolute gem)
3. Or pick up any of the Udemy courses with best ratings.

I think this should be enough for this time ‘round. Next time, we can discuss some other subject which catches my fancy!