JavaScript not my favorite.

Is it me or actually JavaScript is a bit hard to learn? Because I'm having a hard time learning it.

 

I don't feel that Javascript is too hard too long especially if you are familiar with other programming languages. I recommend using google to find a Javascript book and reed up on it. If you are a hands on learner like me, you can mess around with javascript using jsfiddle.net or you can complete some hands on tutorials at www.codecademy.com

 

i never learn javascript. but, i do projects in JS and jquery. google is your friend. you can get all type code from google. just change as you want

 

Don't know at which point you are, but for basics, I recommend Codecademy courses(free) and then codeschool courses (paid but worth it) You'll learn pure JavaScript as well as jQuery, which will be enough to make something nice on your websites.

 

For me JavaScript was easy because I had known C for a decade and a half before it was even invented... and to me, both PHP and JS are just C in a frilly dress. The differences aren't big enough to make a difference if you grasp concepts like object oriented programming and C syntax.

But if you are coming in cold with no real programming experience, you're gonna be overwhelmed. Just remember, on 99%+ of websites, as the unwritten rule of JavaScript says "if you cannot make the page work without scripting FIRST, you likely have no business adding scripting to it." -- which is why 99%+ (pulling percentages out my backside) of the time people waste time and bandwidth on putting JavaScript on a website, there's no real reason for it.

Especially when you get bloated idiotic bull like "frameworks" involved.

 

Hi Howard,

No, javascript isn't hard to learn, it's like anything, it just takes time, patience and perseverance to get your skills to a good level.

Don't expect to be a genius at it overnight. Just start with the basics, and do a little at a time.

Nowadays things are a lot easier, because we are lucky enough to have jQuery, which is a truly phenomenal tool. I suggest beginning straight away with jQuery, and like Sarah says you will start picking up bits of raw javascript as you go along.

A great starter book is jQuery: Novice to Ninja by Sitepoint books.

Give me a heads up if you've got any questions.

Cheers
Mike

 

Bwahaha.... lucky... jQuery... phenomenal.... Oh man, you're killing me. That's the funniest post I've seen in weeks.

Sure, encourage the OP to piss all over their website with fat bloated BS that has no business on websites in the first place. Great plan.

 

lol.

I used to do everything using pure javascript, then switched to jQuery and it saved me so much time.

What do you think is bad about jQuery?

 

1) It feels needlessly and pointlessly cryptic to me... Maybe it's because I had 30 years of programming experience before jQuery was a twinkle in John Resig's eye... but it doesn't work how I work; though to be fair...

Well, you know how Cesaro, Lesnar, Rybaxil are "Paul Heyman guys"? I'm a Niklaus Wirth guy.

2) The vast majority of the codebase is stuff that has no business being done in JavaScript in the first place, more so now that CSS3 is what I'd consider real world deployable.

3) The vast majority of what people do with jQuery has no business on a website in the first place.

4) Much of what remains after eliminating stuff that shouldn't even be on websites could be coded leaner and faster WITHOUT jQuery.

5) It actively encourages people to ignore the unwritten rule of JavaScript -- "If you can't make a fully functional page without JavaScript FIRST, you likely have no business adding scripting to it!"

6) By itself uncompressed it is 50% larger than I usually allow an enitre page template -- that's HTML + CSS + IMAGES + SCRIPTS, not counting content, social media plugins or ads -- to reach. Same goes for other halfwit idiotic code bloat like Bootstrap; Use both and you're really in a giant pile of /FAIL/ at web development before you even start writing your own markup. It's always a laugh when you get people going "why is my page penalized by Google for being slow" or "why are people complaining about my site speed" when they have hundreds of K of framework CSS and megabytes of jQuery scripttardery, and don't understand what's wrong with that. Even worse when it's mated to the inept re-re train wreck known as turdpress.

I've never seen jQuery on a new site, where said site was worth a flying purple fish; I've never seen jQuery added to an existing site where it didn't result in the site being an inaccessible mess and a pale initiation of it's former functionality.

But of course, you always get the people saying retarded bull like "jQuery is easer", "Mootools is easer", "YUI is easier", "Grids are easier", "Fixed widths are easier" and "Bootstrap is easier"... Honestly...

You keep on using that word...

I do not grasp how adding something else to learn is "easier". I do not grasp how using more code is "easier". I REALLY do not grasp how making everything painfully cryptic is "easier"... and I wonder just what the blue devil is in the kool-aid for the folks who seem to think that using JS to do CSS' job and AJAX to do markup's job with no fallbacks is "easier".

... and even in those rarest of rare cases where it is "easier", that's just because the developer is taking a page from Sherry Bobbins and doing a half-assed job.

But honestly, I think the same thing about the halfwit idiotic bs known as HTML 5 -- which as a markup specification is setting everything back a decade and a half.

There's a lot of outright bullshit being slapped onto websites any old way right now, with artsy fartsy PSD jockeys dumping cans of shellac on a pile, scripttards making websites less useful to users, and a general sweeping under the rug of developer ineptitude so that sleazy scam artists can use sick buzzwords to prey on the ignorance of people dumb enough to blindly fork over money. There's a reason I look out at the current state of the web development industry with disgust to the point of nausea...

 

"Well, you know how Cesaro, Lesnar, Rybaxil are "Paul Heyman guys"? I'm a Niklaus Wirth guy."
I don't know any of these people, so I don't understand what you mean.

2) The vast majority of the codebase is stuff that has no business being done in JavaScript in the first place, more so now that CSS3 is what I'd consider real world deployable.
Good point - if you can do it cross-browser safely in CSS3, why use javascript?

3) The vast majority of what people do with jQuery has no business on a website in the first place.
I don't have knowledge about this. As a professional, I'm only interested in enhancing the user experience.

4) Much of what remains after eliminating stuff that shouldn't even be on websites could be coded leaner and faster WITHOUT jQuery.
That may be true, but what about working in teams, allowing different developers to pick up and work with website code from one week to the next? I think jQuery helps with this.

5) It actively encourages people to ignore the unwritten rule of JavaScript -- "If you can't make a fully functional page without JavaScript FIRST, you likely have no business adding scripting to it!"
I don't see how jquery encourages this. The same applies to both jQuery and javascript. A site must work without scripting first and foremost. Only add javascript to a page to enhance functionality for those that have it turned on.

6) By itself uncompressed it is 50% larger than I usually allow an enitre page template -- that's HTML + CSS + IMAGES + SCRIPTS, not counting content, social media plugins or ads -- to reach. Same goes for other halfwit idiotic code bloat like Bootstrap; Use both and you're really in a giant pile of /FAIL/ at web development before you even start writing your own markup. It's always a laugh when you get people going "why is my page penalized by Google for being slow" or "why are people complaining about my site speed" when they have hundreds of K of framework CSS and megabytes of jQuery scripttardery, and don't understand what's wrong with that. Even worse when it's mated to the inept re-re train wreck known as turdpress.
I agree. I think if speed is a concern you need to be careful about all the plugins you add to your site. In particular I've noticed Facebook plug-ins slow things down a bit. And re: wordpress, personally I prefer custom-coding, but that's not always in the client's budget. If someone is adamant they want Wordpress, I usually refer them to someone who's happy maintaining Wordpress sites. I'd rather focus on bespoke coded sites.

I've never seen jQuery on a new site, where said site was worth a flying purple fish; I've never seen jQuery added to an existing site where it didn't result in the site being an inaccessible mess and a pale initiation of it's former functionality.
I disagree. We've successfully enhanced the UI using jQuery in a professional environment.

But honestly, I think the same thing about the halfwit idiotic bs known as HTML 5 -- which as a markup specification is setting everything back a decade and a half.
Interesting, I'm keen to get your input on this?

There's a lot of outright bullshit being slapped onto websites any old way right now ... There's a reason I look out at the current state of the web development industry with disgust to the point of nausea...
Totally. The internet's a right mix of 95% BS, 5% gold. But I'm interesting in building where the gold is.

 

First half was a pro wrestling joke, second part was referring to the father of modern programming.

Professor Wirth created a slew of programming languages including Pascal. He has always been an advocate of clear verbose code, the antethisis of things like C. C and it's offshoots have always felt needlessly cryptic to me and to encourage sloppy coding habits; to be frank jQuery feels WORSE on that to me... and that's coming from someone who can hand assemble RCA 1802, Z80 and x86 machine language. (Honestly, I always thought assembly was less cryptic than C)

I just look at the crap vomited up in jQuery, and glaze over wondering how the devil any of it works, much less is easier than vanilla JS.

Ooh... there's that phrase... "Enhancing the user experience". I know it's a legtimate term, and you may indeed be doing so, but makes my teeth hurt as I've seen it used as a lame excuse for doing the exact opposite WAY too many times.

This article is probably at fault for that knee-jerk reaction of mine:
http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200704/lame_excuses_for_not_being_a_web_professional/

I don't see how overcomplicating things and "throwing more code at it" does so... but then there's a LOT of stuff people put on websites that I NEVER would.

It's probably just that to me I see it a LOT more with jQuery -- by it's very nature it seems to encourage people NOT to learn the underlying language, which makes most people using it not qualified to say if it's garbage or not.

Which I suspect is a hefty chunk of why so many people use it; they don't know enough about HTML, CSS, JavaScript or accessibility to be making websites in the first place.

Care to share a link? As I've said, I've NEVER seen it done! No, seriously, NEVER. EVERY use of jQuery I've EVER seen falls into three categories:

1) crap that doesn't belong on a website in the first place

2) CSS' job

3) could be written as cleaner, clearer, simpler (and quite often less) code WITHOUT jQuery.

I've NEVER seen it used for anything else.

RE:HTML 5 is idiotic halfwit trash

It's a shame my friends forum is in limbo between hosting, I had a pretty good explanation of my viewpoint on this over there -- I'll have to write up a new version and post it here -- We're deep enough into threadjack territory without my posting a 30k article about just EXACTLY what's wrong with HTML 5.

I'm busy most of today -- Sink/fan replacement on a i7 870, four bicycles in the "shop" (aka my garage) siezed up because their owners left them outside over the winter and are under the delusion WD40 is a lubricant, fix the bad advice that pissed all over my brand new js library's legacy IE support, and taking an ex-girlfriend from 20 years ago out to dinner -- but I'll see if I can squeeze in the time to write up a new version of "what's wrong with HTML 5" and post it here as a new thread... Probably be a good way to get feedback on the rough draft of an article I'm working on for a new site that I'm FINALLY putting into production after over a decade of false starts.

 

I'll see if I can squeeze in the time to write up a new version of "what's wrong with HTML 5" and post it here as a new thread

Please don't.

"If you can't make a fully functional page without JavaScript FIRST, you likely have no business adding scripting to it!"
I'm a folly. I don't really understand this. Some of my whole projects will be useless without JavaScript, because it would be a blank page with thousands of line of JavaScript behind it. I think JavaScript is a magic. I absolutely fall in love with this language.

 

Fair play! My expertise does not extend that far! I get it now though. Wirth sounds like a legend.

I started from the basics upwards - I knew a lot of javascript before I came to jQuery. In the same way I did a lot of pure PHP programming before using frameworks. This was of large benefit with my overall knowledge of coding. I think if someone wants to get coding dynamic browser stuff quickly, it's possible with jQuery. But I always stand by my moto that to get really good at something takes a lot of time. You've got to put the man-hours in to get good at it.

Lame as it sounds - no! All my juicy stuff is behind closed doors, i.e. secure log in and confidential. As an example consider AJAX form submission - this is something that definitely enhances the user experience, as does jQuery form validation. Now I think it's fair to say that this could all be done with pure javascript, but jQuery + validation plugin makes it easy. Why reinvent the wheel to do these things? HOWEVER! I feel I'm in a fair place to say this having had the experience of pure javascript coding first, which I think is important at a professional level.

New Site sounds interesting. Yes I can offer a bit of feedback if that would be helpful.

 

Which means you're not making a proper webpage to start with. If the content isn't accessible without javascript, you're doing something wrong - or making something which isn't a webpage/site

 

What, truth going to be too painful?

As PoPSiCLe said, that means you aren't making websites. Admittedly given some of your recent posts you are making crApplets, which is a whole different ballgame... but those are annoyingly useless to a LOT of users and to be frank, insecure code bloat garbage compared to a native application written in a language actually MEANT for writing native applications.

It also means your pages are useless to screen readers, useless to braille readers, useless to search engines, useless to users who block scripting on purpose to save bandwidth or out of outright distrust of it, violates accessibility norms, and to be brutally frank means you aren't even using HTML for what HTML is for, CSS for what CSS is for, or even JavaScript for what JavaScript is for.

 

Yes.

Yes yes yes.
I knew that, along with hundred other people. Those what you called crApplets used to be done with Java. As Apple [Steve Jobs] dislike Java so much and it is not allowed on iOS mobile devices we switch to JavaScript (HTML5) which can do something similar. It is hack upon hacks and will not be able to compete with native anytime soon.

I don't call it crApplets and would not stop doing this, because if I won't, other people (Google) will do it anyway.

I still can't do it for a living though several people can. And that forces me to learn proper HTML, CSS and something you call turdpress along the way.