How I Taught Myself JavaScript Using Codecademy And Books

When I first learned JavaScript, it was so different from the JavaScript programming experience we have these days.

Back then, the JavaScript landscape was truly like the old Wild West.

There were few standards, and writing good JavaScript code was quite difficult

JavaScript Beyond The Bad Parts

I didn’t realize, initially, just what a screwed up programming language JavaScript really was.

But the further I dived into its quirks and peculiarities, the more it became evident that JavaScript did not play “nice.”

It had a whimsical dark side that reflected a rather hastily thrown together system.

So many years later, with the help of having coded in all of these languages and more:

• Racket
• Common Lisp
• Elixir
• Rust
• Haskell
• Erlang
• CoffeeScript
• Java
• C#
• C++
• C
• Python
• Ruby

I’m much more aware just what kind of a hodge podge the JavaScript programming language of the early web and Web 2.0 era really was.

This is why we had reference texts back then like “JavaScript: The Good Parts” by expert programmer Douglas Crockford.

The more expert you were in the realm of programming and programming languages, the less unforgivable you were likely to find JavaScript’s flaws.

Learning With Codecademy

This article is not just a wholesale endorsement of Codecademy, but it is an endorsement nonetheless.

I think back then, Codecademy had not even rebranded to the modern brand, so we knew it back then as “Code Academy.”

And boy, was it fun and a lot of help in taming JavaScript’s wild ways!

They had way fewer courses and things on offer back then, and the whole operation did feel a whole lot more like the Wild West of programming that JavaScript was.

For a kid who was teaching himself to code after taking just a limited number of programming-specific courses throughout my schooling, it was a real help.

Now fortunately, the JavaScript language is much tamer, safer, and there’s plenty more places around where an education in tech can be had conveniently!

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About Ten Mutunhire and Programming Renegades

Ten Mutunhire, founder of Programming Renegades, is a Machine Learning and Fullstack Node.js Developer. Programming Renegades is the world’s first software development agency to be offered by complete Programming Renegades. We use JavaScript and Python almost exclusively, and we focus on web apps (no mobile) and machine learning. See our plans and contact us here.

These are the technologies we work with most:

Node.js and React

• Node.js
• Express.js
• React
• Vue.js
• JavaScript
• CoffeeScript

Machine Learning

• Python
• numpy
• scikit-learn
• TensorFlow
• Flask
• Keras

Our founder, Ten Mutunhire, a Programming Renegade himself, is also available for keynote speeches and tech speaking engagements. Ten’s areas of focus are tips for improving developer/team productivity and happiness, and other high performance strategies for tech teams. For speaking requests, contact us here