Hi,
In my opinion, one can learn anything. You just need the right process and tools that fit your mental structure. If the FCC exercises ant Read-Search-Ask process is not working for you and you just can’t get how JavaScript works, then you need to try a different approach.
I don’t believe knowing how to code is essential, I believe problem solving is. And in Front End, you problem solve with JavaScript code. That’s why there are so many algorithm challenges, becasue to be a great developer you have to solve optimization problems, write the least amount of code to make the site work in the Front End.
In my case, looking at someone else’s code didn’t help, and the FCC exercises didn’t either…I read around online, but still didn’t understand, asked a few questions…explanations I didn’t understand…so, I went out looking for something different. And I found that I needed to learn what’s under the hood of JavaScript (understand why it behaves like it does) and I needed to learn to solve algorithms.
So, I found a course at udemy that took care of the first part, it’s called “JavaScript: Understanding the Weird Parts”. I’m not here to promote Udemy, just saying that this course is there, I took it…an it cleared up a lot of confussing stuff. For the algorithm part, you can take any course of algorithm solving in any language, it’s the though process that counts. However, since I’m trying to learn JavaScript I bought a book called “Data Structures and Algorithms with JavaScript” by Michael McMillan. Unfortunately I could not find a video course about this topic or even an audio book, so I’m reading the ebook.
If you think my process can help you, I recommend you take the udemy course first, and then read the book. Reading the book without understanding basic things like execution contexts and how they respond to closure, or getting a better grasp on First Class Functions, really pinning down the “this” variable or even getting more familiar with the prototype object…could be even more confussing.
I hope this helps! and don’t give on learning, that’s the one thing we as human beings have a knack for…you can learn anything, you just need to find the way to do it and sometimes, the traditional way doesn’t work for everybody. This doesn’t mean that your brain can’t handle it. If you want to be a great developer, then learn to use the tools… (learn = understand) and learn to problem solve.