I feel stuck with JS as a whole

I completed the intermediate projects and algorithms and STILL feel like I don’t understand Javascript. Should I go to youtube videos or another site/book before I continue on to the advanced projects? I know of data structures and basics, but really feel like I fall short.

Practice Practice Practice. Make some random colors with JS. Move an element around a page with DOM manipulation. Make a to do list.

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Yeah, always keep learning. “Do I know JavaScript?” isn’t a yes/no question. It is a spectrum. It can easily take a decade to master JS. People joke that there are only a few people in the world that truly know JS. Just keep building things and you will keep learning. There are some great youtube videos out there and some great books. Every time you encounter something you don’t know, it is a chance to learn.

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It worries me that you know so much and still can’t land a job in the field. I guess it’s just a long road ahead.

Yup. Practice.
Specifically though - think of something to make. Plan it out. What features do you want it to have? If you don’t know how to code a feature for the project that’s good - it causes you to research and learn. Write the code. Make the code better. etc.
I was learning and doing Python for a while and it took a while just to wrap my head around classes - but it clicked at one point. Some things take a bit to sink in.
But if there’s anything specific that you don’t quite get, please ask in the forum!

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It’s a weird market. There are so many openings, but the requirements of each are so specific. And some companies are nervous about hiring people without experience - but not all. If we keep working and getting better and learning, eventually market demand, our growing skills, and a little bit of luck will intersect. It’s just about time and not giving up.

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Somehow your comment just rick rolled me… the bit about not giving up at the end lol

An important question, asked with no implicit judgement: Is Javascript your first programming language? If not, what experience do you have with it (in-school class, online course, or dabbling?) I am of the opinion that formal training in a CS is very useful. Harvard’s EdX course covers several C-type languages. Also, figure out what level you are at, and get a programming buddy to do it with. It’s super useful, especially in the beginning when you tear your hair out over typos.

Source: I have tutored many students in various disciplines (none computer science), and the first thing to establish is student need.

Yeah, I often wonder if JS is the best first language. It has some really cool features, but it’s also a very strange language in some respects.

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I wouldn’t say you should wait before moving on, but it never hurts to learn and practice more.

Codewars.com is a pretty fun way to practice JS through mastery. You complete challenges similar to the FCC algos, but once you finish you can see everyone elses answers too. I find it super helpful to see a few of the other solutions and then think about whether my solution could be improved or not, and just to get an idea of how other programmers approach problems.

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@kevinSmith I would say it’s not at all a good language to learn first. I came from learning Python as my first language. That was very easy to learn and start doing pretty cool stuff very quickly. Moving to Javascript was easier because it’s just learning new syntax. The tougher stuff for me to earn and remember is DOM manipulation and some of the advanced features like async/await etc.

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I haven’t messed with Python other than to read Blender scripts, but that makes a lot of sense. Learning a C-type language is good. Maybe I’m just a dinosaur, but I think the pain of dealing with missing semicolons and having to account for memory definitely comes before the DOM. So, if you swap Python out for AppleBASIC (yes, I’m that old), my newbie order would be: Python, C++, Javascript, PHP.

My own order:
AppleBASIC, Scheme(LISP dialect), C, C++, Java, RealBASIC, PERL, PHP, Javascript.

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Yeah, C and a little Assembly certainly taught me a lot that has helped me understand things about JS and how it works that I don’t know if I would have caught otherwise. Maybe I would have. Maybe I’m a dinosaur too. We tend to see things through the lens of how we first learned.

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The actual field is tricky, people asking for a front end dev will still want you to know some framework and likely SQL. They usually want someone that can do many things than hiring a bunch of people for small things.

That being said I don’t think you need to be a Jedi in JS to land a job, it’s more about having an overall understanding of many tools till you get to a comfortable place where if you don’t know something you can look it up, instead of learning from the scratch. Maybe start using a framework, learn how to set up a REST API, deploy something in amazon can help.

Also not doing code alongs helps a lot, work on an idea you have and face the things you don’t know totally how to do it, that’s how you learn!

His videos are cool, you could check some to have an idea what to look for next.

I can give you a supporting reply only from the JS learner’s point of view - I started to learn a year ago and I still don’t feel ready fo r a dev-job. But I did feel stuck couple of times. What helped me was to take a course on something related to, but not necessarily withing the field of “top 10 things to learn to land a front-end job”. It can be Node.js, it can be React.js, Tensorflow, if you like machine learning , or THREE.js if you like playing with 3d models. And not to dive deep in it, rather to dabble a little and let yourself rest a little and get a new perspective. It’s like with the sport training - say you train football already 5 days a week. But you want to push harder. What do you think will make you a better (and happier) footballer - another day of football trainig or, say a Tai-Chi training?

Be careful you are not succumbing to “Impostor Syndrome”. Here’s simplified definition from the Caltech University Counseling Center 3: ( thanks to @jmmarco ) I would suggest you read up on it. An online search will show that many developers feel this way.

feelings of inadequacy that persist even in face of information that indicates that the opposite is true. It is experienced internally as chronic self-doubt, and feelings of intellectual fraudulence.

If you can do the work, that would indicate this is a possibility here. No one expects you to know everything about JavaScript at this point in your career. Don’t give up, don’t panic; just know that your knowledge is incomplete (like everyone else) and keep learning at a controlled and maintainable pace. You should expect to do this over your entire career. Technology will always change and you always need to keep learning. Even in interviews they will know that you do not know everything and will not expect it.

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Don’t feel like you can’t program because you feel stuck. JavaScript and its transcompiled variations like Babel, TypeScript, CoffeeScript, etc are constantly changing. One of the reasons people feel so lost learning JavaScript is because it instability. They way we fundamental use and write JavaScript today is way different than it was just 5 years ago. There are so many decisions to make when writing code in JavaScript including editors, Bundling, Transcompling, testing frameworks and deployment just to name a few. I am currently taking a pluralsight course by Cory house which encourage people to create their own JavaScript Development Environment or starter kit https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/apache-kafka-getting-started. It is basically gives you an explanation of all the decisions you have to make when writing in JavaScript a way of writing your own kit to reduce the amount of reinventing the wheel when starting new projects. This is really helping me right now and I hope it provides help to others. Best of luck. You will get through it.

I agree with all comments; I too on par completing the FCC JS challenges but have also stepped up to read more into all the nuances asociated with JS. e.g ES6+ template literals, destructing obj, etc. Check out Scrimba if you can…but it’s a journey to explore and what you want out of it.

I really recommend the series You Don’t Know JS by Kyle Simpson. For me it was key to understand more advanced JS concepts, but it started from the very beginning.

You can read the books for free here: https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS
You can also buy them. The links to buy the books are on the same GitHub page.

I disagree to you opinion that javascript is not a good language to learn first. I started with javascript and it was easy to learn and to move on to other languages.DOM manipulation is not a tough task if you are learning in proper way just start it from basics. You can compare it with other languages to change your point of view about javascript, here you can find comparison of javascript with other languages…
https://blog.carbonteq.com/javascripts-importance-and-comparison-with-php/