So far, Javascript seems pretty concise and streamlined as a language. It’s the kind of language that you feel like its creators knew how older languages worked, and wanted to create something more efficient and “cleaner,” in a sense. It’s a bit simpler in its syntax and its rules, for example being able to store different data types into a single array is not something that Java likes, and the applications of being able to store multiple types into a single array speaks for itself. It gets rid of the need for a lot of convolution. Being able to create variables such as “var” or “let” came as a bit of a surprise to me, and was a bit of a change for me. However I can see how being given the freedom of not having to declare a variable as a data type can be useful and get rid of a lot of messiness
Usually when people are asked “Which language is better, X or Y?” you will get a bit of a vague answer. However professor Johnson seemed pretty outspoken and adamant in his confidence in the Javascript language, so it is encouraging, and also a bit refreshing to hear. It is my hope that in the near future I will be able to truly appreciate its applications and see where other languages can fall short.
The in-class WODs are pretty fun, and I find them extremely useful. Sometimes procrastination can get the best of me, so I will wait until a “due date” or some kind of threshold is upon me before I start to get deep into the work. Hopefully these periodic WODs will force me to keep up to date with the material in such a way that I’m never behind by more than a couple days. The practice WODs helped me significantly, too. It’s easy to see a problem, and understand “how” it’s done, but when you sit down and practice it, you realize it might take you a few minutes more than you realized. For the first WOD, I thought it was trivially easy, but due to my unfamiliarity with Javascript and Jsfiddle, I went over the time limit, and DNF’d. Although it is stressful, I do think this kind of “trial by fire” pedagogy works.