JavaScript: Courses, Training, and Other Resources

How to Learn JavaScript 

Many of the web pages with which you interact on a daily basis are powered by JavaScript. The telltale sign that JavaScript is used on a page is if the site has an interactive feature.

Consider Netflix. You can interact with the Netflix dashboard. You can choose a program to watch and that program will start loading. Moving between pages is seamless with the use of transitions. This would all be impossible without JavaScript.

In this guide, we’ve compiled some top tips on how to get started learning JavaScript.

What is JavaScript?

JavaScript is a scripting language. It allows you to add interactive features to a web page. For instance, JavaScript lets you add animation to a page or load additional data on a page after that page has already loaded. It is usually used with HTML and CSS.

JavaScript is used on both the front- and back-end of websites. So-called “vanilla JavaScript” powers the interactive features you see on the client side. For instance, if you click a button and a dialog box appears, you can bet JavaScript was involved.

Today, there are many frameworks which extend JavaScript. These include React and Angular.js. Using these frameworks, you can develop more complex applications.

What is JavaScript Used For?

JavaScript is used to add interactive elements to a web page and for building web servers and mobile applications. JavaScript is usually added after the HTML and CSS for a web page, which define the structure and style of a page, respectively.

Here are the main purposes of JavaScript:

• To make sites more interactive. JavaScript lets you add features like playing audio and video, interactive menus, animations, and image carousels.

• To build web servers. Back-end frameworks like Node.js let you create web servers with JavaScript. This means that you can power both the front- and back-end of your site using JavaScript without having to depend on another scripting language for the back-end.

• Games development. JavaScript is used to develop many of the in-browser games that you see today, from versions of Solitaire to more complex internet games.

Learning JavaScript

JavaScript is a valuable skill to learn in the modern economy. With websites playing an increasing role in how we consume information and entertain ourselves, you can expect that there are plenty of companies who are looking to hire skilled JavaScript developers.

But that leaves us with the question: how do you learn JavaScript? It’s a good question and one that we should take a bit of time to consider.

Why Should I Learn JavaScript?

There are many reasons why you should learn JavaScript.

JavaScript is easy to use

The reason JavaScript is often so favored by new developers is that it is a higher-level language, and so many of the complexities of your code are done by the machine instead of in your code.

JavaScript offers a simple syntax that somewhat resembles the English language, which makes it easy to build strong mental connections to the programming concepts you are covering.

JavaScript is versatile

JavaScript allows you to add many interactive features to a website, from video players to functional buttons to images that change when clicked.

That’s not all. So-called “vanilla JavaScript” (where you only use JavaScript) is only part of coding in JavaScript. Once you’ve mastered the basics of JavaScript, you can extend your skills and use them to master a library like Angular, Vue.js, and React.js. These technologies are all used for web development in a wide range of different contexts.

You can also use the skills you’ve mastered while learning JavaScript with a framework like Node.js to build back end web applications. Or you can use your JavaScript skills with React Native or another mobile framework to build a mobile app.

JavaScript developers are in high demand

Whether or not you are looking to start a career in tech today, it is always comforting to know that the skills you are building can be transferred over when needed. In the case of JavaScript, because it is such a crucial part of the internet, there are companies that are constantly looking for talented developers with JavaScript proficiency.

The TIOBE Index, which uses search engine results to estimate the popularity of the main programming languages, currently ranks JavaScript as the seventh most popular programming language (as of April 22nd, 2020).

Do you need more convincing? According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, demand for web developers is expected to rise by 13% by 2028. While this statistic does not track JavaScript specifically, it does give us a strong indication of how demand for web developers is increasing. If that was not enough, as of April 22nd, 2020, Glassdoor is featuring 21,495 jobs for JavaScript developers!

When taken into account collectively, these facts paint a clear picture of how learning JavaScript can impact your career. In addition, if you specialize in skills such as React.js or Node.js, you may even find yourself in even higher demand, as these frameworks grow in popularity and are used in an increasing number of applications.

How Long Does it Take to Learn JavaScript?

It takes between six and nine months to learn the basics of JavaScript to the point where you feel comfortable writing your own programs. This assumes you study for about an hour a day. In this time, you will only scratch the surface of JavaScript. There is so much to learn that it may take you over a year to learn some of the more advanced features.

How long you will spend learning JavaScript depends on your career goals and motivation.

If you are learning JavaScript with the hopes of becoming a web developer, six to nine months is a good time frame to aim for while studying part-time. But, you may decide to study full-time so that you can accelerate your learning. In this case, you may be able to master the basics of JavaScript within five or six months.

To become a professional web developer, you should expect that you will keep learning, even once you make the career move. Every year there are new frameworks released or updates to existing frameworks that you may want to keep track of if you want to build more powerful JavaScript applications.

Is it Hard to Learn JavaScript?

JavaScript is not a hard language to learn as long as you have a basic understanding of web development. You do not need any prior programming experience to get started with JavaScript, although you will need to know how to use HTML and CSS.

You can expect to spend months learning the basics of JavaScript whether or not you are new to the language. There will be challenges along the way. But, thanks to the wide range of resources out there, you should have no trouble finding a solution to the problems you face.

What’s more is that JavaScript has a simple syntax. This means that JavaScript code is easy to read and understand. Because code is easy to read and understand, it should not take you long to start identifying patterns in code that you’ll use throughout your JavaScript work.

How to Learn JavaScript: Step-by-Step

There is no one “right way” to learn how to code in JavaScript. It all depends on how you learn best. Some learners prefer tutorials whereas others prefer online courses.

Let’s discuss the high-level journey you should take to learn JavaScript:

1. Determine your motivation. To start, first ask yourself why you are learning JavaScript. This will help you stay motivated even when you face tough challenges.
2. Master the fundamentals. Your first step should be to learn the basics of JavaScript. Spend time learning about variables, syntax, if statements, and everything else that beginners need to know.
3. Build projects. There is no better way to learn a programming language than to build projects. Decide on a website that you really want to see exist and then use your acquired skills to bring that site to reality.
4. Join a programming community. Online communities like StackOverflow and Dev.to are great places to meet other developers. In these communities, you can seek help from other coders and find examples that may help you learn.
5. Take on more difficult challenges. After you’ve built some basic projects, you may want to think about how you can make them more impressive. Can you make your projects faster? Or add more features? This will push your knowledge of JavaScript and get you in the habit of thinking about more efficient ways to write code.

The Best JavaScript Courses

There are hundreds of online courses that cover JavaScript and web development. But, how do you know which one you should enroll in? That’s a great question.

Below we have listed some of the best free online JavaScript courses that will help you expand your knowledge of the programming languages.

Udemy: Learn to Program in JavaScript: Beginner to Pro

Price: FREE

Certificate: Not available

This online course is aimed at making you a great programmer. Some of its main goals are to make sure that you understand the concept of object-orientation. Object-orientation is an important idea within programming.

The course is meant for students who want to learn JavaScript from scratch. Although, it would be better if you already have a familiarity with HTML and CSS because these two go hand-in-hand with JavaScript.

To be more well-rounded, the course also includes discussions on the possible limitations of JavaScript. This way, you can be aware of how to solve challenges.

edX: JavaScript Introduction

Price: FREE

Certificate: Available if you pay $199

Through WC3, this course is part of a program for web developers. Essentially, the end goal is for you to make your website more interactive. Through the help of JavaScript, this is not far from being achievable.

This introductory course will teach you how to add dynamic content and multimedia materials to your website. Through the activities in store, you will discover how powerful this script can be as well as its many tools you can use to your advantage.

Modern JavaScript understanding is needed to keep you up-to-date with the changing times.

Learn-JS: JavaScript

Price: FREE

Certificate: Not available

Learn-JS is a free database of tutorials on JavaScript and other web development resources. There is a specific tab for JavaScript which contains links to tutorials on topics under it. These are self-taught and need your full attention to learn.

The categories are separated between the basics and the advanced tutorials. Basics would include essentials like learning variables and types, conditions, functions, and more. Meanwhile, there are advanced tutorials on Object-Oriented JavaScript, among others.

Coursera: Interactivity with JavaScript

Price: FREE

Certificate: Available

As part of a specialization program for web design, this course is designed to teach you how to add interactivity through JavaScript. Interactivity includes functional abilities to auto-fill saved data on a website.

You must have a bit of knowledge about HTML, CSS, and JavaScript before you join this course. In fact, you may start building real projects as ideas so that you can come up with something after completing this course.

Udacity: Object-Oriented JavaScript

Price: FREE

Certificate: Not available

Approximately three weeks is needed to complete this course on object-orientation with JavaScript. Web developers will learn how to build applications by making use of reliable code. 

Part of the process of immersing in object orientation is to always strive to maintain that objects best represent their data and function. This course is a step towards ensuring that all elements of the website are accounted for.

Interactive quizzes are also available for this program.

JavaScript Tutorials

JavaScript is a popular programming language used to power many core components of websites. This object-oriented computer programming language is mainly used by developers to make web pages interactive and responsive. Over time, JavaScript has become integral to the browser experience, with more and more websites seeking developers to enhance interactivity and improve the overall user experience. 

We recommend enrolling in a top JavaScript coding bootcamp to truly master the language. These programs offer a great alternative to earning an online degree. Most bootcamps also offer career services that should help you secure employment in related fields. 

However, if you want to explore the language further before making a bigger commitment, then there are other online resources you should consider. Here are some of the best online tutorials on JavaScript you can find on the Internet.

Best JavaScript Tutorials for Beginners

Learn JavaScript Full Course for Beginners

freeCodeCamp is a non-profit organization that provides free coding resources to help aspiring developers learn to code, including beginner tutorials. This three-hour-plus YouTube tutorial is ideal for the complete beginner as it introduces you to basic topics to help you get started. 

In addition, you will learn about declaring variables, dividing numbers, and accessing array data. The tutorial also covers augmented addition, bracket notation, and variables, among other advanced topics. The tutorial is broken down into 134 parts.

Learn JavaScript

This is a complete tutorial offered by Codecademy, a top coding bootcamp that has helped thousands of people launch their careers in tech. Many of Codecademy’s graduates are employed at companies such as Google, NASA, and IBM. 

According to its official website, over 1.6 million people have taken this course, which takes about 20 learning hours to complete. You’ll learn about conditional statements, functions, scope, loops, objects, iterators, and arrays.

This course features picture and video tutorials that will help you ensure you learn how to code using JavaScript. You can take this course for free, but the paid “pro” version offers several interesting advanced features and perks.

JavaScript – The Complete Guide 2021 (Beginner + Advanced)

Udemy is a popular online course provider utilized by many aspiring programmers hoping to increase their tech skills. Over 81,000 students have taken this particular JavaScript course. It typically costs $89.99 but there are regular sales that heavily discount the price. The only prerequisite is a working computer. 

This course is delivered online and features video tutorials from experts. They’ll help you become a JavaScript master in about 52 learning hours. During this time, you’ll learn about testing, security, deployment, manipulating web pages, debugging, variables, and data types.

JavaScript Guide

Are you looking for a step-by-step guide to learn JavaScript? Consider this online guide from Mozilla Developers. This comprehensive guide features interactive tutorials to learn the ins and outs of JavaScript. 

You’ll study the fundamentals of JavaScript, control flow, error handling, loops, iteration, expressions and operators, functions, numbers, text formatting, and objects. This website also has intermediate and advanced JavaScript guides if you wish to continue your studies after you master the fundamentals. 

The Complete JavaScript Course 2021: From Zero to Expert!

This Udemy course will help take you from a JavaScript novice to an expert. Over 500,000 students have taken this paid course and rated the program positively. It takes roughly 68 learning hours to complete, during which you’ll learn JavaScript fundamentals and work on real-world projects. 

The course has many videos which serve as excellent tutorials to help you develop your programming skills. You don’t need to have any prior experience to take this course but you will need a computer with a Windows, Mac, or Linux operating system. 

Best Advanced JavaScript Tutorials

JavaScript the Hard Parts: Asynchronous JavaScript

Codesmith is a top-ranked school that offers immersive software engineering courses across 15 countries and several states in the United States. This course dives deeper into JavaScript and what it means to be a Javascript engineer. 

Key topics covered include the call stack, the event loop, background threads, and the callback queue to help advanced engineers solve asynchronous problems. This free YouTube tutorial is two hours and 36 minutes long. 

Asynchronous JavaScript with async/await

This course by egghead.io covers the ES2017 async and await keywords to help developers write asynchronous functions. The tutorials are delivered online in video form, but this website also features transcriptions for those who prefer to study text. 

JavaScript the Hard Parts: Object-Oriented Programming

Codesmith’s co-founder delivers this free YouTube tutorial designed for experienced programmers. It covers prototypes, factories, classes, constructors, and E5 and E6 approaches. The video is about an hour long and dives into the tough parts of JavaScript that most novice programmers will find challenging. 

Understanding JavaScript’s Prototypal Inheritance

This egghead.io course teaches how prototypes work within JavaScript. You’ll also learn how to manipulate prototypes and how factory functions can be used within this programming language. This course is delivered online through video tutorials, but you’ll need a membership subscription before accessing them. 

Deploy a Next.js Fullstack App

Full stack web developers can benefit from this tutorial offered by scotch.io. It covers how to develop a full stack Next.js application with Vercel, a deployment platform for frontend projects. You’ll learn about static data fetching, API routes, and server-side rendering, among other advanced app development topics.

Best Free Javascript Tutorials

JavaScript Tutorial

Tutorials Point offers many online tutorials for a wide variety of programming languages. You can learn Python, Swift, React Native, and JavaScript. The JavaScript tutorial course is free to all. It is beneficial to have basic knowledge of HTML coding before tackling the contents of the course.

You’ll learn how to write your first JavaScript code and how to enable JavaScript in modern browsers, among other topics. When you finish, you’ll be able to manipulate HTML pages and be proficient in backend data loading, server applications, and client-side validation. 

The Modern JavaScript Tutorial

You can find this course at Javascript.info. You should consider this program if you are looking to understand JavaScript and gain a working knowledge of how this powerful programming language is used within major browsers. 

This tutorial features picture tutorials that help beginner students start from scratch and advance to concepts like object-oriented programming (OOP). It covers key topics such as data types, analytics framework, functional programming, prototypes, inheritance, error handling, and objects. 

JavaScript Tutorial

W3Schools has helped many aspiring programmers through their online courses. The JavaScript Tutorial course from this school is best suited for beginners looking to learn modern web development.

This course has many tutorials and exercises that are designed to nurture your growth from a JavaScript beginner to an advanced JavaScript developer. It also features pictures to give you a visual representation of what efficient code should look like.

Online JavaScript Books

JavaScript and JQuery by Jon Duckett

Jon Duckett is famously known for his book on HTML for CSS. This book is aimed at people who are new to JavaScript and want to learn the language. You’ll learn about topics like the fundamentals of programming, how to write a script, and JavaScript syntax.

This book also talks about JQuery, a modern framework that extends JavaScript with a range of new features. This is a great next step in your learning journey after you feel comfortable with coding in JavaScript.

JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford

JavaScript: The Good Parts is a great beginner’s introduction to JavaScript development. You’ll find plenty of guides on basic and more advanced JavaScript topics, from variables to conditionals.

What’s more is that this book comes with plenty of code snippets. You can use these snippets to gain a firmer understanding of the concepts you are learning about.

Eloquent JavaScript (3rd Edition) by Marijn Haverbeke

Eloquent JavaScript is a comprehensive introduction to the JavaScript language. This book features a range of examples and code snippets that you can use to build your understanding of coding in JavaScript.

As you read through this book, you’ll find plenty of hands-on exercises which will help you reinforce your knowledge. The most recent edition of this book, the third edition, features a range of updates which ensure that you’ll be learning modern best practices.

Online JavaScript Resources

JavaScript for Cats

JavaScript for Cats is an online tutorial series for the JavaScript programming language. You’ll find resources on topics such as strings, loops, arrays, and built-in JavaScript functions. This series is great if you have no experience with JavaScript and are just getting started.

According to the introduction, you should be able to get through the tutorial in about an hour or two. That’s an impressive amount of time.

Mozilla JavaScript Tutorials

Mozilla, creators of the Firefox web browser, have an extensive set of documentation on web development. They have an entire section of their documentation dedicated to learning JavaScript.

You’ll find tutorials on everything from loops and variables all the way to meta programming and iterators. Whether you are just getting started or know a lot of JavaScript, you’ll find something useful on the Mozilla site.

Codecademy Learn JavaScript Track

Over 1.6 million people have enrolled in the Codecademy Learn JavaScript online course. This interactive course will walk you through all of the basics of coding in JavaScript, from using conditionals to working with arrays.

Throughout this tutorial, you can expect to work through interactive problems with the help of pre-written code snippets. You’ll walk away from this course with a clear understanding of how to write a basic program in JavaScript.

Conclusion

JavaScript is an excellent language to learn for any aspiring web developer. It will allow you to make your web pages more complex and interactive. Using JavaScript, you can add features like carousels and animations to your site.

When you first get started, you should focus on the basics of JavaScript. Learn about syntax, variables, lists, and loops. Then, you can start working on your own projects. This will help you reinforce your knowledge of the language.

It will take you a few months to get familiar with the basics of JavaScript and even longer before you will be ready for a professional career in JavaScript. But, with the right investment of time and energy, you’ll be able to tackle any challenges you encounter. In a few months, you could be looking back to this moment as a new JavaScript coder.