Book Image

JavaScript from Beginner to Professional

By : Laurence Lars Svekis, Maaike van Putten, Codestars By Rob Percival
4 (5)
Book Image

JavaScript from Beginner to Professional

4 (5)
By: Laurence Lars Svekis, Maaike van Putten, Codestars By Rob Percival

Overview of this book

This book demonstrates the capabilities of JavaScript for web application development by combining theoretical learning with code exercises and fun projects that you can challenge yourself with. The guiding principle of the book is to show how straightforward JavaScript techniques can be used to make web apps ranging from dynamic websites to simple browser-based games. JavaScript from Beginner to Professional focuses on key programming concepts and Document Object Model manipulations that are used to solve common problems in professional web applications. These include data validation, manipulating the appearance of web pages, working with asynchronous and concurrent code. The book uses project-based learning to provide context for the theoretical components in a series of code examples that can be used as modules of an application, such as input validators, games, and simple animations. This will be supplemented with a brief crash course on HTML and CSS to illustrate how JavaScript components fit into a complete web application. As you learn the concepts, you can try them in your own editor or browser console to get a solid understanding of how they work and what they do. By the end of this JavaScript book, you will feel confident writing core JavaScript code and be equipped to progress to more advanced libraries, frameworks, and environments such as React, Angular, and Node.js.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
16
Other Books You May Enjoy
17
Index

Getting Started with JavaScript

It appears you have decided to start learning JavaScript. Excellent choice! JavaScript is a programming language that can be used on both the server side and client side of applications. The server side of an application is the backend logic that usually runs on computers in data centers and interacts with the database, while the client side is what runs on the device of the user, often the browser for JavaScript.

It is not unlikely that you have used functionality written in JavaScript. If you have used a web browser, such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge, then you definitely have. JavaScript is all over the web. If you enter a web page and it asks you to accept cookies and you click OK, the popup disappears. This is JavaScript in action. And if you want to navigate a website and a sub-menu opens up, that means more JavaScript. Often, when you filter products in a web shop, this involves JavaScript. And what about these chats that start talking to you after you have been on a website for a certain number of seconds? Well, you guessed it—JavaScript!

Pretty much any interaction we have with web pages is because of JavaScript; the buttons you are clicking, birthday cards you are creating, and calculations you are doing. Anything that requires more than a static web page needs JavaScript.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

  • Why should you learn JavaScript?
  • Setting up your environment
  • How does the browser understand JavaScript?
  • Using the browser console
  • Adding JavaScript to a web page
  • Writing JavaScript code

Note: exercise, project and self-check quiz answers can be found in the Appendix.