My First Experience with JavaScript

31 Aug 2022

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My Last Semester

It has been approximately one week since I was first introduced to JavaScript, and I am now approximately one week into my final semester as an undergraduate computer engineer student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. I still find it astonishing that this is my first experience with JavaScript and that this semester will be the first time I will learn about web design. However, there is no better time to learn than the present.

My Previous Experience

My previous experience in programming has mainly been in C with some experience in C# and C++. When I was introduced to JavaScript, I was relieved to find quite a few similarities between JavaScript and C such as loops, if-statements, and functions. One thing that is different however that I am pleasantly surprised by is the way variables are declared. Unlike JavaScript, C and its variants must assign variables a type when declaring them. However, this is not the case in JavaScript and has allowed for more flexibility in regard to objects and variables.

Athletic Software Engineering

Before I started learning about JavaScript, I was told by some friends that it was difficult compared to C. After one week however, I have been pleasantly surprised by its similarities with C. A large contributing factor to this is Athletic Software Engineering, which utilizes Workouts of the Day (WODs), which are are time-constrained coding sessions where a problem must be solved, to practice and become more familiar with JavaScript. I believe that these WODs will greatly benefit me in the long run not just with JavaScript, but for programming with other languages and other high-intensity time-constraint tasks.