Book Image

JavaScript Projects for Kids

By : Omar Faruk Towaha
Book Image

JavaScript Projects for Kids

By: Omar Faruk Towaha

Overview of this book

JavaScript is the most widely-used programming language for web development and that's not all! It has evolved over the years and is now being implemented in an array of environments from websites to robotics. Learning JavaScript will help you see the broader picture of web development. This book will take your imagination to new heights by teaching you how to work with JavaScript from scratch. It will introduce you to HTML and CSS to enhance the appearance of your applications. You’ll then use your skills to build on a cool Battleship game! From there, the book will introduce you to jQuery and show you how you can manipulate the DOM. You’ll get to play with some cool stuff using Canvas and will learn how to make use of Canvas to build a game on the lines of Pacman, only a whole lot cooler! Finally, it will show you a few tricks with OOP to make your code clean and will end with a few road maps on areas you can explore further.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)
11
Index

Chapter 1. Exploring JavaScript in the Console

Before we start talking about lines of codes, objects, variables, and so on, we need to know what JavaScript is. JavaScript is a programming language that is used to add interactivities to the web pages and build web applications. Static websites are not very popular these days, therefore, we use JavaScript to make our websites interactive.

Some people also call it a scripting language as it is an easy language and does not require compilers like other languages. JavaScript was not designed as a general purpose programming language, it was designed to manipulate web pages. You can write a desktop application using JavaScript. JavaScript can also access your machine's hardware. You can try making a desktop application with a software development kit (SDK) such as PhoneGap for mobile or the Microsoft app SDK for desktop. The JavaScript codes are interpreted on web pages and then run by a browser. Any modern Internet browser, for example Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, UC Browser, Opera, and so on, supports JavaScript.

Note

A compiler is a computer program that processes codes and turns them to machine language. Making a website interactive means adding features that are controlled by the users to the website. For example, online registration forms, online calculator, and so on. The Static website has fixed objects and contents and it displays the same information to all the visitors.

Basically, JavaScript is included on an HTML page or written on a separate file that has a .js extension. If you know nothing about HTML, don't worry as you will learn about it in Chapter 3, Introducing HTML and CSS. So, where can you use JavaScript?

The answer is simple, you can do the following:

  • You can create an active user interface.
  • You can control web browsers.
  • You can validate user inputs (if they are typed wrong).
  • You can create custom web pages that can pop up on the browser, holding information or images.
  • You can create dynamic pages without Common Gateway Interface (CGI). CGI is used by the web servers to process a browser's information.

Note

The thing that you should remember is JavaScript is not Java, the programming language developed by Sun Microsystem.

Throughout this book, we will use Google Chrome as the default browser and Atom as the text editor.

If you do not have these two software already installed on your computer, it is necessary to download and install them.

We will use the Atom text editor as it is a cross-platform editor, has a built-in package manager, does smart autocompletion, and has a lot of other advantages.