Imagine a child, taken away from his homeland of China to Japan. Sure, Kanji looks like his native Hanzi writing system, but the meaning doesn’t exactly translate the same. Like a child stripped of language, I felt the same shift learning JavaScript after learning Java (but definitely on a less dramatic scale). Java was the first computer language I learned, which almost felt like a 2nd language to me when I was using it every day to complete my homework assignments in high school. But after the culmination of other languages (C, C++) as I progressed in my academic career, I felt as if Java was slowly fading away from me. So the revitalization of Java through JavaScript in my Software Engineering class was really motivating for me to continue to improve and rediscover my love for my “first language”.
Yet an issue I came across was that I had learned Java, not JavaScript initially. While they sound practically the same, they each have their own quirks that forced me to rewire how I thought and coded. Javascript followed many of the same principles and ideas as JavaScript (object-oriented programming, classes, functions, etc.) but the syntax was sometimes different, so I had to force myself to remember to write with JavaScript syntax (let/const/var instead of int… which happened many times in my code) so that my code could function properly.
A lot of my time during this process of learning Java was spent reviewing the concepts I have learned previously but in another syntax. Yet with JavaScript’s ES6, there were also a bunch of features that I had learned for the first time.
What I really enjoyed about JavaScript was the implementation of ES6 and how efficient it made coding compared to Java. After exploring JavaScript, Java feels very strictly formatted, where each variable has to be called by a type, you have to make technical code to do certain things, etc., while JavaScript made coding a lot more efficient with “prebuilt features.” Some examples were how you could deconstruct a string into an array with a single function, but for Java, you would have to either code it yourself or import a library with that function implementation.
JavaScript was not something that was hard to understand (which might be a bit biased due to my previous knowledge of Java), but it is something you’d have to familiarize yourself with through practice and repetition. Overall, Javascript introduced a lot of features that made coding a lot more efficient, but it just took time to get used to the new syntax and rules that it provided.
As with any other language, JavaScript took time to adjust to, but after learning more about how it works and the features that it provides, I am very excited to learn more about how I could implement the language into future projects. Javascript has awesome applications for both frontend and backend development, so I hope that I can utilize the language to its greatest potential when I create Javascript programs.
In my Software Engineering class where I am learning Javascript from, we have recently adopted an athletic software engineering learning style. This approach to learning entails learning concepts in modules, and breaking down information into better understandable sections. My professor let us know how this learning style has been a preference for many students throughout his years of teaching, but I personally love the way that this has been implemented in this class. It keeps everything organized into sections which can help me revisit past information faster, rather than everything being contained in larger sections. It also helps demoralize procrastination, by making learning into smaller steps, rather than larger, intimidating sections. Although it can be stressful because of the work that needs to be done within each section, it overall helps with a more efficient, and less confusing style of learning.
To whoever has stumbled upon this essay, I hope you too continue to improve your skills, in whatever sector of your life. All you need to do is get familiar, get to work, and be set on learning, and it will take you leaps and bounds above the person you are today, you got this!