Learning JavaScript - my experience and advice

Re:Learning JavaScript - my experience and advice by shawndrost on Sunday March 24, 2013 @10:19PM (#5434950)

Javascript's secret weapon[1] -- especially for beginning programmers -- is its dev tools. If you learn JS' debugging toolkit early on, it will accelerate your learning in general. I recommend Code School's "Discover DevTools" course [2] for beginning devs, but I'm not aware of a high-quality introduction for experienced devs.

Shameless plug: I teach at a school for JS devs named Hack Reactor. If rewriting Underscore as a learning tool sounds like fun, you should apply. http://hackreactor.com

[1] until now. [2] Chapters 3-4. http://discover-devtools.codeschool.com/chapters/3

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Re:Learning JavaScript - my experience and advice by minikomi on Monday March 25, 2013 @01:21AM (#5435620)

Indeed. Learning that

    debugger;

will stop the interpreter at any point you like, with console scoped at that point, has sped up my JS'ing greatly

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Re:Learning JavaScript - my experience and advice by grinnick on Monday March 25, 2013 @03:48AM (#5435899)

Wait you can what!?? Holy moly, I've been writing JS for like 3 years now and I never knew this.

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Re:Learning JavaScript - my experience and advice by minikomi on Monday March 25, 2013 @03:57AM (#5435917)

Yep - as long as dev tools are open. Works everywhere, even in eg. underscore templates, backbone init functions..

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Re:Learning JavaScript - my experience and advice by thisone on Monday March 25, 2013 @11:54AM (#5437670)

chrome extension content scripts...

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Re:Learning JavaScript - my experience and advice by d0gsbody on Monday March 25, 2013 @12:05PM (#5437744)

You should watch Discover DevTools then.

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Re:Learning JavaScript - my experience and advice by chunkbot on Monday March 25, 2013 @08:18AM (#5436582)

Holy shit! I've been programming in JavaScript for years and never heard about the debugger statement. This looks great for really understanding the details of JavaScript's object model.

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Re:Learning JavaScript - my experience and advice by jasonkostempski on Monday March 25, 2013 @08:59AM (#5436707)

Also that little stop sign shaped pause button in Chrome will 'Pause on all exceptions' (blue) or 'Pause on all uncaught exceptions' (purple, I usually leave it on this).

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Re:Learning JavaScript - my experience and advice by afandian on Monday March 25, 2013 @08:46AM (#5436662)

Doesn't a breakpoint do exactly the same thing?

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Re:Learning JavaScript - my experience and advice by minikomi on Monday March 25, 2013 @09:23AM (#5436792)

Yep! I find it easier to use the debugger statement though when changing code a lot. Also, some places like compiled templates are difficult to set the breakpoint so it's useful there too.

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Re:Learning JavaScript - my experience and advice by joelhooks on Monday March 25, 2013 @09:32AM (#5436827)

Just watch out, we get these committed semi-frequently. Whoops!

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Re:Learning JavaScript - my experience and advice by zhodge on Monday March 25, 2013 @03:24AM (#5435856)

I've been reading up on all of the hacker schools (Dev Bootcamp, App Academy, etc.) and I was really excited to find out about Hack Reactor: I have very minimal programming experience, but have found JavaScript a pleasure to work with.

I look forward to applying to Hack Reactor when it's financially feasible! :)

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Re:Learning JavaScript - my experience and advice by aw3c2 on Monday March 25, 2013 @07:55AM (#5436520)

What exactly do you mean with "dev tools"? Any specific browser?

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Re:Learning JavaScript - my experience and advice by shaischechter on Monday March 25, 2013 @11:29AM (#5437497)

The Developer Tools feature built into modern browsers (Chrome/Safari/FF/IE8+/probably others). Extremely useful when debugging JS. I know the Chrome one also allows remote debugging of your web site/app on Android.

Chrome instructions - https://developers.google.com/chrome-developer-tools/docs/ov... ... others are easy enough to find

Just whatever you do, remove the debugger (and console.log) statements before committing/deploying!!! I've seen this too many times and it's not nice when you end up throwing exceptions in older browsers that have no idea what these statements mean.

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