No, the console API is a handy thing to learn. Alert is not handy, it's an ancient function that (a) blocks your page thread, (b) can't show anything except `.valueOf`, (c) can't be selectively ignored, (d) it's an obsolete API from way back when javascript 1.5 was hot stuff.

If you're teaching, teach people to use console.log because that's where they're going to get REAL insight into what the code's doing (console.table you say? amazing!) and never look back. And if you're learning, demand people teach you modern practices. Not ridiculous things from 20 years ago.