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JavaScript is widely natural and essential tool for web development because it is not limited only to designing the look of the web page but it also offer lots of functionalities. This article can be characterized as a simple tutorial that introduces readers with JavaScript basics as well as its uses.
JavaScript was developed in 1995 by a programmer named Brendan Eich and was under the employment of Netscape Communications Corporation. This then has grown to a strong language capable of defining interactive web pages, server-side scripts, and even mobile apps. JavaScript is interpreted language, which gives the idea to the user that it does not require any compiling. Because of this, it is ideal for other dynamic feature matters pertaining animations, form validations, or even content update, not requiring the page to be reloaded.
In this regard, JavaScript is an object-oriented language, implying that most values are implemented as objects. Similar to Python, JavaScript is also a dynamically typed and this means that variables can hold values of any data type and even the type of the variable can change at any point of time in the program.
Variables: Data storage variables or structures in which different values are stored. In JavaScript there are three ways to declare a variable using var, let, and const.
Data Types: JavaScript has many types of data; they include String, Number, Boolean, Null, Undefined, Object, and Array.
Operators: Arithmetic operators in JavaScript are +, -, *, / etc., whereas comparison operators include ==, !=, ===, !==, etc., and logical operators include &&, ||, ! etc.
Control Structures: These are if statements and switches and cases and loops – for, while, do while.
Functions: Specific coding segments that have been developed to complete a certain operation. Functions can be used more than once in the program as they are called hence making them versatile.
It can also modify HTML elements and styling tags to build dynamic contents for further enhancements of the sites. Documents Object Model or DOM is a conventional interface to the actual website and its structure, style and content. JavaScript can dynamically insert or delete an HTML tag, alter the values of an HTML tag, and alter the CSS properties.
Interactivity is a result of user activity with the web page and includes actions like mouse clicks on a button, a mouse move over a link or form submission. JavaScript can listen to these events and execute the user interface for interactive outcomes.
As a novice, the requirement for optimum productivity is the adherence to ‘best practices’ as a way of minimizing the generation of non-idiomatic code. Some best practices include:
Commenting: Rely on comments to describe what your code actually does, and this will help you and other people who will use this code.
Code Formatting: By coding neatly and with the right format, spaces and indents the program becomes easy to follow.
Avoid Global Variables: Take care not to employ global variables in your functions since it is risky to end up with side effects.
Use Strict Mode: The line, “use strict”; placed at the start of your scripts enhances the parsing and error checking of your scripts.
So the resources for learning JavaScript include online tutorial, API and documentation, forums and coding community. Some are MDN, freeCodeCamp, and Stack Overflow.
JavaScript is one of the core languages for any web developer hence knowledge in this language is very vital. Given JavaScript’s capacity to deploy dynamic web page features, the proficiency will offer broad prospectus across the web development sector. It is often said that practise makes man perfect and you will achieve the desired result the soonest time possible; this maxim cannot be truer on how to learn JavaScript programming basics.
