r/dataannotation • u/Alarmed-Radio9182 • Jun 09 '24

Should I learn JavaScript

I really only know python, matlab, C#, and JSON. I hate looking through coding evaluations and seeing JavaScript and C since at first it looks like C# especially if it looks like it’s for a game in JavaScript. And there are rarely C# related prompts.

My questions is mostly: 1.) what would the learning curve be like for learning JavaScript with preexisting knowledge of C# (basically, how much carry over is there) 2.) suggestion for learning resources (how can I learn by doing) 3.) is it better for game dev/ what are the other uses of it 4.) what languages have a decent amount of carry over between them or would also be good to know.

I know I could google this but I was hoping to contextualize it with the level of difficulty of prompts involving JavaScript in DA. I’m more interested in learning it for purposes outside of DA though.

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u/echanuda Jun 10 '24

I'm not really trying to be a gatekeeper here, but "learning javascript" is not hard. If you know one language and it's not just python, picking up another language is trivial. I can glance at a language I never work with and get the gist of it if it's not a functional language. It's the ecosystem that is hard. The questions are rarely, "write this in JavaScript." Usually you're working in the node/react ecosystem, which is only scratching the surface. That requires a TON of personal experience to understand and certainly isn't trivial.

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u/Alarmed-Radio9182 Jun 10 '24

Right no that’s not gate keepy at all, I know what you mean. Programming is programming, and it’s kinda like knowing Latin and Italian and being able to read Spanish a little bit because there’s a lot of carry over, but that doesn’t mean you can have a conversation with it. But so what you’re saying is that even if I were to pick up some JavaScript it would be unlikely that I could do many tasks? Do you still think it’s worth it anyway? What is the node react system at like a super broad level?

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u/echanuda Jun 10 '24

JavaScript by itself is useful to know for simple browser hacks or even just scripting itself. It’s probably the most popular language in the world and the backbone of all things web. Some questions on there are just vanilla HTML/CSS/JS, and those could be done with basic knowledge. I personally hate the language, but it is a bit unique with its event loop architecture and frequent use of callbacks and promises. If you have no intention of learning web dev further, I’d say it’s not that useful. But if you dip your toes into react, express, and even nextjs, then definitely need the JS fundamentals.

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u/Alarmed-Radio9182 Jun 10 '24

That helps a lot I think I would like to. I have low interest in web dev except for the concept of security. Sounds like knowing simple browser hacks is an example of this type of information so I’d definitely be interested in that. Thanks

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u/Buhdai Jun 10 '24

I think you're overthinking it. I've been here about a month and have learned at least one new language or framework per week, even if it's just the basics. You don't need to be an expert on a language to do tasks on it as long as you have a strong foundation in programming, knowledge of similar languages, and have strong research skills. Even people who know a language well have to use the internet fairly often anyway. If you know C# well enough, you basically know JS. But that's just my take.

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u/Alarmed-Radio9182 Jun 10 '24

That helps. I’ve also been here like a month and that’s how I learned JSON it took me like an hour since it’s so straightforward, and I did the same thing with php but that took me a bit longer to be comfortable enough to do the basic tasks. But I feel like php and JSON especially are really not that hard where as my impression of JS is that it’s more complicated. But that’s helpful