[kwlug-disc] Fw: Re: Learning Javascript

[Paul Nijjar]

Another one.


----- Forwarded message from Rob Gilson <thatotherdude at gmail.com> -----

Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2021 14:10:58 -0500
From: Rob Gilson <thatotherdude at gmail.com>
To: KWLUG discussion <kwlug-disc at kwlug.org>
Subject: Re: [kwlug-disc] Learning Javascript

>
> A lot of Javascript now revolves around "async/await", and there are a lot
> of blog posts currently being written about what a nightmare this is.


Personally when I was teaching this stuff I prefered to get through the
mental gymnastics of Promises and async/await early on so that the students
could get the developer experience improvements sooner. Async/await is hard
to learn but having gotten through that I couldn't imagine building things
without it. I think you kinda touched on that in what you were saying about
industrial programming - but I'd go further to say async/await is useful
for writing manageable javascript in general and not just about performance
optimization.

Also I really appreciate the reference to the color of functions article -
that's one of my all time favourite JS articles ^_^

- Rob

On Sat, Mar 13, 2021 at 1:54 PM Doug Moen <doug at moens.org> wrote:

> I only dabble in this stuff, but I have some opinions based on hobby-level
> programming and blog posts. People who write javascript for a living may
> have better opinions.
>
> Elm is a lovely language. It's a strongly-typed, pure functional
> programming using the "Elm Architecture" as the framework, and that
> requires a specific kind of thinking. It's a kind of thinking that I find
> very easy to deal with as a programmer. Elm has nice error messages and
> provides a guarantee that clients will never see run-time errors in their
> web browsers when running your code. Elm compiles into Javascript.
>
> Javascript is object oriented (forcing you to mentally track shared
> mutable state) and dynamically typed, the opposite of Elm. A lot of
> industrial shops are switching to Typescript in order to get better compile
> time checking. Typescript compiles into Javascript and is largely
> compatible with it.
>
> A lot of Javascript now revolves around "async/await", and there are a lot
> of blog posts currently being written about what a nightmare this is. (Even
> though it is supposedly an improvement over earlier frameworks.) Many of
> the blog posts refer back to this famous post:
> https://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2015/02/01/what-color-is-your-function/
> I have now classified "async/await" as something to be avoided for my
> hobby programming. And I have no corporate masters who require me to learn
> and use it. I understand that async/await is currently essential for
> industrial programming at a scale where you are dealing with millions of
> network connections.
>
> The React framework seems to predate async/await. It is essentially a
> third way of thinking about how to program, and about what triggers
> functions to be called. It seems to be an improvement over the previous
> paradigm of "callback hell". My impression is that the "Elm Architecture"
> is nicer to work with than React.
>
> I understand that you can combine React with async/await.
>
> I think there are multiple ways of thinking about programming in
> Javascript depending on which framework and language features you use. I
> also think that a solo programmer building a low-traffic web site has
> different requirements for their language and framework than an industrial
> programmer working in a large team at Facebook.
>
> On Sat, Mar 13, 2021, at 1:12 PM, Paul Nijjar via kwlug-disc wrote:
> > I do not understand JavaScript and it is holding me back.
> >
> > I have basic familiarity with programming in other paradigms (Python,
> > Powershell, Java, C, even Scheme) so I understand basic syntax like
> > variables and if statements. I do not understand how JavaScript wants
> > me to think, and I am looking for some resources to work through so I
> > can learn. Questions I have:
> >
> > - How does JavaScript want me to think?
> > - What triggers particular functions to be run? I do not really
> >   understand the control flow.
> > - Do the popular frameworks (React, VUE, Angular) mean you have to
> >   change the way you think from vanilla JavaScript?
> > - Say I want to learn Elm. Does this hurt me or help me when trying to
> >   learn JavaScript?
> >
> > Some overview articles would be good to start, followed by some
> > hands-on tutorials that illustrate language features step by step. I
> > do not think I want to commit to some six month course right now, but
> > if you know of good ones then pass them along.
> >
> > I realize that this is not completely on topic for this forum (and
> > maybe I will try KWTechs later) but I thought this is a place to
> > start.
> >
> > - Paul
> >
> > --
> > Events: https://feeds.off-topic.kwlug.org
> > Blog: http://pnijjar.freeshell.org
> >
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>
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----- End forwarded message -----

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