So far it’s been a week into the course ICS 314, and the first week tasked us with the daunting task of jumping right into a new programming language: Javascript.
Prior to this class, all I’d heard of Javascript was from memes blasting it as a bad language. Having had a week to learn about the language, I’ve found it nothing like what I’d heard of the language. It seems rather similar to Java in syntax, with minor variations that are inconsequential to learning the language. It could be due to the number of languages I’ve used, but I felt the syntax was quite easy to pick up. As my experience with Javascript is only a week long, I may change my opinion if it turns out that there are features of the language that I don’t like, but so far my impression of it is good.
I’ve used learning modules before, and the modules provided by freecodecamp.org seemed pretty consistent with the quality of modules I’ve seen in the past. I think they are good at showing the techniques available from a language, but as with modules, the material really has to be practiced to get a good understanding of the code and how it works. It seems like Javascript could be a good software engineering language, as it provides some unique and useful benefits, such as the ability to return different types of values from a function.
The practice Workout Of the Days coupled well with the module learning, as it affords more practice with the techniques gained from the modules. Yet I think these exercises are limited by them being assignments, as this both dissuades exploration due to a time crunch and limits the amount of available practice. Having additional, optional practice WODs that cover a wider range of techniques present in the modules would improve retention and give a better understanding. I personally don’t particularly like the modular learning but find the WODs to be a worthwhile test of skill. I think that I can make almost any learning scheme work, but I prefer lectures over modular learning with the caveat that the lecturer actually likes the topic and wants to teach it.