[Guide] Better understand and use JavaScript

When I started learning JavaScript, I saw it mainly as the language used to add animations to web pages, and for good reason, the trendy technology at the time was still good old jQuery, and AngularJS had only been around for a few months.

Being deep into learning OOP in C++, software architecture and design patterns at the time, JavaScript seemed to me at the complete opposite of this very structured approach, with its dynamic typing, its default pass-by-reference principle and its lack of compilation.

One day, right after we had joined the programming club at my IUT (because programming during the day wasn't enough, apparently), set up by one of the most captivating teachers at the school, he made it his goal to show us why this language is unique.

Since that day I started experimenting with JavaScript, first to add a few interactions, then to call my webservices in order to make my pages dynamic, then modern frameworks came along, and I never left it again.

Here, I've tried to gather all my articles about JavaScript, in case, just like me, this language fascinates you, along with a few external articles that I find particularly interesting!

JavaScript in practice

NodeJS

In 2015 I discovered NodeJS, and that's when I understood that it's not enough to know a language, you also need to know its different runtime environments and their specificities.

It's also important to know how far the integration of this environment with the system it runs on can go, and for that, nothing beats experimenting!

To go further

I recently came across this series of articles by Lydia Hallie, which I find very interesting for understanding the inner workings of JavaScript, the V8 engine, but also the Web APIs.

These articles are in English, but the interactive diagrams crafted by the author are really clear and easy to understand, so enjoy!

I hope this guide has been useful to you, and see you soon on the blog!