A letter for those who want to learn JavaScript

Yesterday I received an email from a young developer who told me he was having difficulties learning JavaScript. He told me that he looked at some of my open-source projects, found them pretty interesting, and asked for some advice about how he could learn JavaScript.

I’m not the best JavaScript developer in the world; I am really distant from where I want to be in a few years from now, but I decided to help him.

I started to write the email to him right away, and after almost 1 hour of writing, I wrote this mini-blog post that you guys would read. I decided to post here because it might have helped other developers who are also starting to learn JavaScript.

I hope it is helpful for those who are starting to learn JavaScript. Feel free to share in case you guys like it.

Hi Developer,

I appreciate that you liked my open-source contributions. I think I can help you with a few tips that allowed me to get started with JavaScript:

JavaScript is the best programming language to start if you don’t have any programming background and want to learn it. The JavaScript ecosystem has matured over the years, and new libraries are created daily to solve various problems.

This piece of advice can help not only you but many others who are starting to learn JavaScript.

Here are a few things that I learned throughout the years and that I think can help you:

Learn the basics.

It would help if you started learning JavaScript by the basics; after that, you can learn and build more complex things. Your goal here is to learn JavaScript, so begin to search for content for JavaScript beginners and find what works for you. Take a few courses. Read articles. Watch talk videos. Listen to podcasts. There are a lot of different ways that you can learn it; you need to find the way that works for you. Don’t compare yourself with developers in the field for a long time; you will get frustrated. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday as a developer, and try to learn new things daily. A few years from now, you will see how long you have improved and mastered JavaScript.

Learn in public.

This is the fastest way to learn; you will know and build a network while helping others. You might have been experiencing a problem that another person might have been experiencing as well; you might provide value to them by showing how you solved it or how to solve it. Start to write articles; you can write about the most basic JavaScript concept, and you will not only help others but learn in the process; that’s a powerful way to learn, in my opinion.

Build different projects.

Here to you, after you have learned JavaScript, to start to learn React would be unfair. If you want to learn JavaScript but don’t know exactly which way as a developer you’re going to follow, there are many different ways to go from here. You must build many other projects and work with various JavaScript technologies. Build a REST API, learn how APIs work, and build using different approaches. Create a simple calculator using other projects such as React and Vue, and learn what problems each solves. Learn and work with different types of databases, and know the difference between SQL and NoSQL databases. Build different things. You’ll find yourself along the way.

Contribute to projects that you like.

Open source is the most powerful thing for a developer. You will work with people from across the globe, create a network, solve people’s problems, help developers who want to start contributing to that project, etc. Contribute to different projects that you like or that you use daily. You don’t need to create the most complex thing for that project; you can quickly start with a simple documentation suggestion. Try to mess a little bit with the code; read how the code works and how the project works under the hood. Open source contribution brings value not only for you contributing to the project but for people and companies who will use your code in the future to scale applications for millions of users.

These are the pieces of advice that I can give you. It would help if you kept grinding and learning new things every day. JavaScript, like any other programming language, can be challenging for those who must be determined to learn it correctly.

I wish you success and hope you can learn JavaScript and become and fantastic developer.

Cheers,

Leonardo