I flew through the HTML & CSS and then finally met my maker at javascript. The first half went ok, but I have begun struggling like crazy with the second half - delving into possible solutions and then trying to understand why those were the solutions. Record Collection gave me a two day headache and once I had shaken that off, I hit Profile Lookup…
I am starting to feel like my level of understanding is not where it needs to be to continue on and am thinking I should just put this down and supplement my current understanding with something else, to make it through the rest of this section.
Can those of you who have completed this section with no prior programming experience, clue me in as to what helped you? Maybe there is a specific book or website that you found paramount to this section? Any help is hugely appreciated.
I really found the best way to learn JavaScript was to use JavaScript. This simply means practice, practice, practice. Completing the course exercises and projects is very helpful. CodeWars is another practice resource I find very useful. Start it in JavaScript and work your way up a few levels. Being able to compare my solutions to other people’s solutions has proven incredibly useful for determining what I’m doing well and what I’m doing not-so-well. No faster way to learn in my opinion.
Sometimes I need object methods as well. Otherwise, just getting real comfortable with loops, nested loops, and if statements plus knowing when to walk away from a problem and think about it away from the computer for a day.
I found MDN the best source for javascript. But if you like reading books then there is a series of books You don’t know JS which is topics wise in detail so you can understand it easily.
I’ve been a developer for years - mainly html and css and I’ve been dabbling in Javascript for years too, never getting beyond the very basics.
I’m starting to make some progress now as I’m spending a lot of time with the freeCodeCamp courses. I’ve had to go over some of the ideas many times (and sometimes, out of sheer frustration, have looked at the solution). But I returned to the same challenges a few weeks later and tried again with more success.
Sometimes the main barrier I had to understanding the challenges was that I didn’t understand the instructions properly. A good idea is to copy and paste the them into a text file then try and rearrange them until you are clear as to what they are asking you to do.
One very good idea (which you’ve already started doing) is to post questions, no matter how elementary you might think they are, on this forum. Make sure you include the necessary amount of detail required to understand the problem (if you don’t do this, people get exasperated and click to another page). In my experience people are very kind and willing to help. If you don’t understand an answer ask for a simpler explanation.
Don’t jump ahead. I spent a good couple of months trying to learn React (a Javascript framework) before I realised it just can’t be done without having a good grasp of basic (and not so basic) Javascript.
Youtube is great for Javascript information - if you search for the specific thing that’s giving you a problem there just might be a video dedicated to it.
