I have been studying Javascript for about two weeks. It has been fun learning a new language. The first impression to Javascript was that it was similar to java or C/C++ which were the languages that I had learned before. Therefore, I did not have a negative thought to Javascript. However, I learned that the genes for Java or C++ and Javascript were different. Java and C++ came from Von Neuman architecture, and Javascript came from both Human-Computer symbiosis and Lambda calculus. Because of this, Javascript can do more things than Java and C/C++ and is more interesting. One of the surprises is that we can put anything in an array in Javascript. It is so cool! I am looking forward to learning more about Javascript and play with it to find new interesting features that I can use.
As I mentioned above, Javascript is such an amazing language. I said that I was surprised at how the Javascript allowed us to put anything such as integer, string and both in an array which would not happen in Java or C/C++. In C/C++ programming, we could make an array inside another array, but it is so complicated to keep track on and add or delete elements in the array. On the other hand, in Javascript, we can make an array in the array or make our own name on it. This makes easier for us to find objects in the array. The example is below.
const student = {
name: 'Alex',
age: 21,
major: 'Computer Science'
}
Additionally, when we declare variables in Javascript, we do not need to know or declare what a type of the variables would be such as int, float, char and so forth, but just use let or const. It has been just a couple of weeks fo me to use Javascript, yet I found it would be faster to write a small code in Javascript compare to Java or C/C++.
By these two big reasons, I believe Javascript is a good programming language. Also , I have been enjoying learning and playing with Javascript.
There is a new learning style, that I heard in ICS314 course, which is an athletic approach to software engineering. There is a practice WOD (Workout Of the Day). In fact, it makes sense. Since I was a member of a tennis club in my high school in Japan, I understood that how everyday practice rally influenced the ability. I was not that good at tennis, but I needed to swing my tennis racket 100 times, especially at the beginning. Practicing tennis for several hours once a week and practicing tennis for 30 minutes to an hours 4 times a week have a huge difference in the progress. In the same way, programming also needs everyday or frequent practices in order to understand and to be good at it. Of course, it would be a bit stressful, yet I found the importance and usefulness of WODs in learning to program and being a software engineer.