This easy-to-follow and fun guide is the perfect place to start on your coding journey. You’ll be learning to program with JavaScript—the most popular programming language on Earth—but the techniques that you’ll master will provide you with a foundation to go on and use in other languages, too.

Learn to Code with JavaScript

Preface

So you want to learn to program? You’ve made a good decision. Programming is a fantastic skill to learn, and it’s great fun. It can be used to build the next generation of apps, hack a Raspberry Pi or Arduino, write the latest blockbuster games—and a ton of other things. In fact, once you learn how to program, the only limit is your imagination.

Press Start

In the last chapter, we were introduced to programming and we even got our hands dirty writing a few programs.

Programming Basics

In this chapter, we’ll be looking at how letters and words are represented and used in programming languages. We’ll also look at how JavaScript represents them using strings. We’re going to cover the following:

Letters And Words

In Chapter 3 , we learned all about strings. Now it’s time to learn about numbers! In this chapter, we’re going to cover the following:

Numbers

So far, we’ve met primitive data types such as strings, numbers and Booleans. But what if we want to store a whole collection of values in a single variable? For example, we might have a list of prices that we want store in the same place. Composite data types can be used to collect primitive values in a structured way.

Collections

In previous chapters, we looked at the primitive values of strings and numbers. Now let’s take a closer look at Booleans, another primitive data type, and find out how we can use them to control the flow of a program.

Logic

Computers are great at carrying out repetitive tasks over and over again. They never get bored and will follow the instructions exactly every time. Loops are a way of getting a program to repeat a piece of code according to certain conditions.

Going Loopy

So far, we’ve learned quite a bit about coding, and if you’ve been completing the challenges, you’ve already put together some small bits of code. Wouldn’t it be great if we could save those bits of code and run them at any time in a program? That’s what we can use functions for!

Functions

Objects are abstract data types used in programming. They can be used to represent real-world objects such as people, animals or places, as well as more abstract concepts such as bank account details, dates or file structures.

Objects

The Document Object Model

In the last chapter, we were introduced to the DOM and how it allows us to interact with the elements of a web page. In this chapter, we’ll be looking at how events provide the link between user interactions and our program. That’s right—this chapter is where your code starts to become fully interactive and the fun really begins!

The Main Event

You’re now a good three quarters of the way through this book and well on your way to learning how to code. In fact, you already know enough to be able to write some short programs.

Going Loopy Over Arrays

We covered functions back in Chapter 8 , but now it’s time to dig a bit deeper and look at some more advanced topics specific to JavaScript.

Let's Get Functional

We first encountered objects in Chapter 9 . In this chapter, we’re going to take a more in-depth look at object-oriented programming and how you can use JavaScript to create classes. We’ll be covering the following topics:

Getting Classy

Working with times and dates can be tricky in programming languages. For this reason, most languages have some sort of built-in Date object that helps to make the process easier. JavaScript is no exception, and we’ll be taking a look at how that works in this chapter. We’ll be covering the following:

It's About Time

Just because you’ve nearly finished this book doesn’t mean your coding journey is coming to an end. On the contrary, it’s only just beginning. As the saying goes: as one code block closes, another opens …

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