There was a popular saying that any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually be written in JavaScript. The programming language indeed has seen tremendous growth in both popularity and its library development. The release of Chrome V8 in 2008 enables JavaScript to run in the backend, making JavaScript the de facto language for pretty much everything we can imagine of. As a developer, you can use JavaScript to build web and mobile apps, desktop apps, real-time networking apps, command-line tools, and games. Initiative has also been taken to make JavaScript available for machine learning and artificial intelligence development. With the rise and use of JavaScript increasing every year, it's really hard to ignore JavaScript if you are working in software development.
By learning JavaScript, you will have the advantage of using only one language for every software development project you might have opportunity to work on. Almost every company that used technology for their business use JavaScript in one way or another, examples include companies like WordPress, Walmart, Netflix, and PayPal. Also giant tech companies like Google, Facebook, Wix and Uber are developing JavaScript libraries for the communities. You can already see the diversity of businesses that used JavaScript. The bottom line is JavaScript brings you massive opportunities that can’t be rivalled by other programming languages.
The goal of this book is to enable people to learn about JavaScript fundamentals as well as advanced topics such as the use of Object Oriented JavaScript, interacting with the browser using JavaScript and creating a JavaScript based server using Node.js.
To accomplish this goal, the book will be divided into four parts as follows:
Covers the building blocks of JavaScript programming language like data type, function, object, array and class and how to mix them all in order to build a small but solid program. The purpose of this part is to make you ready to code JavaScript application using the fundamentals of the language.
To JavaScript, the browser is a big object with special methods that can be accessed in order to manipulate the presentation layer of a web application. Here you will learn about the Document Object Model and how JavaScript can use it to manipulate elements you see in the browser window. You will also learn about JavaScript network request and create a request to some example API endpoints.
With Node.js, JavaScript can create an web server to receive and respond to HTTP network requests. This part will briefly covers how you can build a simple Node.js server and then create a small server that is consumable by the web.
Covers the tricky part of JavaScript that can unintentionally lead to unwanted behaviour when you create a program. This includes hoisting, the this keyword scoping and implicit conversion.
Each part of the book build upon the previous part to create a unified narrative to understand how to code software using JavaScript. Instead of covering everything out there about JavaScript, this book will give you a curated information and knowledge to help you build JavaScript powered web application.
If you have been struggling to learn JavaScript and make your career as a software developer, this book will help you to master all the essentials of JavaScript fast.