In The World Of Coding
19 Jan 2018
In the world of coding I am still a complete newbie. With only three languages under my belt, Java, C, and C++, I am far from being a full-fledged programmer; I am more of a programmer in training. When learning all three of these languages, I found them to be very unforgiving and to me, not very intuitive for some concepts. I also found the syntax from some of these languages to be overwhelming for the first languages I learned. A year and a half into my Computer Science degree and I was never confident with my code, not until my first Software Engineering class, ICS 314, where I had to learn JavaScript.
Before ICS 314, when I heard Java and JavaScript I thought they must be the same. That was very ignorant of me to think, as I now know that JavaScript is a client based browser language and Java is an Object Oriented Programming language. But this to me didn’t really mean anything. Whatever JavaScript is used for I had one question, was it intuitive for me? Thankfully the answer to my question would be a big, yes! Learning JavaScript has been the easiest language to learn. Its syntax somewhat mimics Java, so I have something familiar to go off of, but the rules of what you can do with JavaScript, or the lack there of, are what makes this language so much fun for me.
One of the best things in JavaScript is putting different data types in arrays, because in Java this is a no no, without some convoluted way of working around it. But in JavaScript, I can put whatever I want into an array. I can mix and match data types and JavaScript does not care. Its like it has trust in me that I know what I am doing, and If I want a number and a string in the same array then it will give that to me. With that being said, With Java I can see the upsides of having strict rules. Catching mistakes before they happen and debugging your code might me easier in Java since it won’t allow you to maybe make a silly mistake with mixing your data types. Although my honest opinion is the “trust” that JavaScript is giving to the programmer is amazing for software engineering. No one wants a complicated web page that is hard to use, so why would you want that for the code you use to write it with. Computer Science is really an art and a very creative field of study, so it is unnecessary to put rules on our artist.
My newfound passion for JavaScript is not only the result of the language itself, but also from the way that my instructor runs his class. He teaches by the technique of athletic software engineering. This is where he gives us timed coding problems to solve called a WOD, as they were workouts. Just like going to the gym regularly works on your physical fitness, exercising solving coding problems works on your coding abilities. This is something I thoroughly enjoy and has already made me a better programmer. The stress induced by the time I have to solve the problem, gets my brain to snap into coding mode and think about problems more easily. Even when we are not in class for him to administer the WOD he has practice WODs available for us to attempt at home, and to stay on a weekly schedule of athletic software engineering.
In the world of coding I am still a complete newbie, and that’s okay. I started this year with only three languages under my belt, but in just a few months ill add a fourth. A few more years from now and know knows how many I could know. I have a lot to learn and a lot of time to practice. I am far from being a full-fledged programmer, but I am on my way.