JavaScript Reflection
20 Jan 2017Previous experience
Lucky to say, ICS 314 isn’t the first time I’ve laid eyes on JavaScript. It was actually during my co-op tour with AMD that I was tasked to design a web tool and had to learn JavaScript using mostly Google-fu and coding tutorials, but more on that later. Anyway, JavaScript is a language and arguably, the language for the web. Since I’m a computer engineering major, I haven’t had any previous exposure to JavaScript from school, so that co-op was really the first time I’ve seen and used it. So now the question is, what do I think of it?
What I like
I started learning JavaScript off of Codecademy and the syntax was pretty similar to some other programming languages that I’ve used (Python and C). I’d say it was a pretty friendly language to learn and I could see why it was the most popular language. What I really loved about JavaScript was the idea that anyone with a browser could see my projects without having to download or install anything. This gave me a lot of ideas for potential web applications to build. So JavaScript is relatively easy to learn, is the most popular language, and can build cool web applications that run on browsers. What’s not to like?
What I dislike
Let me preface this next section by saying that I have nothing against frameworks. I know each framework is (hopefully) good for something and that there’s a reason to their existence, but my only gripe is that there are so many of them. I’m a person who doesn’t fare well when given a lot of options, so knowing that there are all these libraries out there and people are saying to use them, is a bit overwhelming.
Actually, there is this great article on Hackernoon.com that really sums up exactly how I feel. I definitely recommend you give it a read.
My overall impression
Overall, I there is a time and place for everything. For me, I just want to make simple and fun web applications which I can achieve using regular vanilla JavaScript and jQuery. I think JavaScript is a good language and I’m definitely looking forward to learning more about it in ICS 314.
Thoughts on WODs
For those of you who aren’t familiar with WODs, they stand for Workout of The Day. This is a part of the concept of athletic programming. The idea is that we do short programming problems and must try to finish under a certain amount of time, improving our programming skills and problem solving. My thoughts on WODs is that they’re a great idea and I absolutely enjoy them. They’re a great way to really test your programming skills and to strengthen them. Although it may be stressful at times since you’re up against the clock, my theory is that the stress is actually what makes this effective (which is why people remember high-stress situations). Anyway, I really like them and I wish more of my other classes implemented WODs into their curriculum.