Hello, I’m new to the forums. I recently decided to switch from Java to JavaScript as my primary programming language. Found this website and have been in love since. I have one problem though it seems like the switch from Java to JavaScript has been well…somewhat confusing in the way the syntax is, but at the same time it feels as if I’m blasting through the JavaScript section super fast. It says 300 hours on the JavaScript portion and I’m already done with half of the JavaScript section within 3 days. Is this a bad thing?
It is not a bad thing, the 300 hours are an approximation, and for someone that has never touched a programming language before. Also, you will need more time with the algorithms, as they are much more complex, and with the projects.
Keep going at your pace, it is completely fine.
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I don’t why it just feels like I should be taking more time with this. But I can’t seem to pace myself, even though things are clicking very easily with JavaScript outside of the weirder syntax.
I would not worry about comparing your performance to what is suggested or what it might take for other people. Everyone learns differently, at a different pace, and comes in with a different base of knowledge.
It sounds like you have a decent self-awareness of your own abilities, and as long as you are comfortable with a lesson and confident that you already know it, or learned something new, there’s no reason not to continue.
If you’re going too fast you’ll get stuck, or not be able to complete a project. Simply put.
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If it’s going, keep going
If you want to practice more pure JavaScript before going forward with other things maybe do some more hours on codewars (it is a website with many many algorithms) or in the code interview prep section at the bottom of the curriculum
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I asked myself the same question on the HTML portion. I started the FFC course recently and prior to that my only experience with coding was watching motivation video (you know, the ones with the title "how to become a dev in 2018 
), some videos about the different programming language and once I picked what I wanted, a few html/css and javascript tutorial to see what it looked like.
Then I started FFC thinking “ok so 300 hours in the html/css section should take me about 2 months let’s go”. And a few days later “no way this is going to take 300h”.
I logged 42 hours 30 minutes and I just finished the second project with 3 to go so it won’t even take 100hours.
I think the way the course is designed permit to go through it very fast for certain types of learners. For me I like to understand things but I don’t like to “learn” them (if it make sense) so once I understand something I just remember I can do it if needed and that’s it (and if you need it often enough it will stick).
I guess for you, as you already had previous coding experience this is more like understanding how this new syntax works and it make the learning process even easier (the course in itself is just: read the lesson, understand it, write this here to pass to the next lesson). As long as you understand what is taught you don’t have to worry about going too fast. The most important tho is to take time for each project, try to test a lot of things and do more than what the example shows if possible. That’s when everything you “understand” from the course will stick.
So just keep going with the lessons as fast as you like and you will test everything with the projects.
Yes the main thing that has thrown me off is the syntax and the way the this keyword works in JavaScript. All things like loops, conditionals, constants, object(s) and their creation and things of that nature seem to carry over just as easily into JavaScript. It just seems like it is making me blast through the JavaScript section.
Yeah I guess for the this keyword if you understand the big picture even if it’s not perfectly clear that’s good enough for the lessons and it will make a lot more sense once you will start to use it in a lot of projects.
The main purpose of the first few portions of the JavaScript section is to teach how code works. With a background in Java, I doubt you are stumbling over things like variables, functions, types, scopes, and logical operations. As you said, this is just a new syntax for you. Learning a new syntax is pretty easy, relatively speaking. Depending on how experienced of a programmer you are, you may find the whole JavaScript section fairly quick (but good practice IMHO).