Chapter 2: Surveying JS

Chapter 2: Surveying JS

The best way to learn JS is to start writing JS.

To do that, you need to know how the language works, and that’s what we’ll focus on here. Even if you’ve programmed in other languages before, take your time getting comfortable with JS, and make sure to practice each piece.

This chapter is not an exhaustive reference on every bit of syntax of the JS language. It’s also not intended to be a complete “intro to JS” primer.

Instead, we’re just going to survey some of the major topic areas of the language. Our goal is to get a better feel for it, so that we can move forward writing our own programs with more confidence. We’ll revisit many of these topics in successively more detail as you go through the rest of this book, and the rest of the series.

Please don’t expect this chapter to be a quick read. It’s long and there’s plenty of detail to chew on. Take your time.

TIP:
If you’re still getting familiar with JS, I suggest you reserve plenty of extra time to work through this chapter. Take each section and ponder and explore the topic for awhile. Look through existing JS programs and compare what you see in them to the code and explanations (and opinions!) presented here. You will get a lot more out of the rest of the book and series with a solid foundation of JS’s nature.

TIP:

If you’re still getting familiar with JS, I suggest you reserve plenty of extra time to work through this chapter. Take each section and ponder and explore the topic for awhile. Look through existing JS programs and compare what you see in them to the code and explanations (and opinions!) presented here. You will get a lot more out of the rest of the book and series with a solid foundation of JS’s nature.