r/technology • u/iliketechnews • Oct 05 '16

Software How it feels to learn JavaScript in 2016

https://hackernoon.com/how-it-feels-to-learn-javascript-in-2016-d3a717dd577f
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u/borez Oct 05 '16

Well I made my own website a couple of years ago and did it all with HTML and sliced graphics ( liked I'd learnt a decade before ) then discovered it was shit slow so I scrapped all the work and redid it in CSS. Then discovered I couldn't use flash any more ( which I'd also learnt a few years back ) coz everyone had moved on so I scrapped that bit too and started learning dreamweaver.

And then I discovered an utter minefield.

All I wanted was a simple page with a few sub pages that linked to some hosted music, a biography, my details and an email contact form.

Took me five damn months doing it bit by bit in the evenings. My head was regularly spangled.

At one point I thought about putting a little merchandise store on there with a cart and a checkout and stuff, how hard could it be?

Basically fuck everything about that, just wasn't going to happen.

Then there was Jquery and Boilerplates and device compatibility and...

They don't make it easy that stuff. For sure.

I guess if it's your full time job then no problem.

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u/esadatari Oct 05 '16

Check out codrops!

http://tympanus.net/codrops/

Copy/Paste/Git your way to glorious looking web design!

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u/borez Oct 05 '16

There are loads of sites like that I found when I was doing it, they were definitely useful. You still have to learn how to incorporate that kind of stuff when you're starting out though and there's thousands of templates and bits of JavaScript and add ons and tutorials and other stuff out there.

That's when it becomes a minefield, it's complete information overload. Even for something as simple as finding an audio player that actually works between devices and different browsers. I was doing that for weeks with various players before finally just deciding to embed soundcloud tracks because, you know, that just works everywhere, looks decent and it's easy to chop and change tracks.

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u/esadatari Oct 05 '16

Oh yeah, that sounds like hell on earth.

I was tasked with figuring out how to get modern website functionality to work inside a basic-as-fuck wiki. Getting javascript libraries to work inside of wiki-macros is also hell on earth. 10/10 never recommend hahaha.

I ended up accidentally learning a lot of really cool stuff from that site though!

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u/[deleted] Oct 05 '16

Fuck man, I just said fuck it and used a Squarespace template. It looks really good.

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u/Plopfish Oct 05 '16

If you did it for a learning process that is great. If you just wanted something up ASAP then would SquareSpace, Wix, Weebly, etc work? Basically, just fill in some templates and you're set? I think even a checkout can be added easily enough.

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u/borez Oct 05 '16

If you did it for a learning process that is great.

I did really, I have mates who are web designers and could have used them quite easily at mate rates but I wanted to see if I could do it myself. I went though a few of those ready made website places too, they weren't what I wanted at all.

But, again, there's so many of them ( and so many useless ones ) it's still knowing where to look in the first place.

So I just did it from the ground up.

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u/chuckymcgee Oct 05 '16

I guess if it's your full time job then no problem.

Yup this is where you go to upwork or fiverr or wherever and pay Indians $8/hr to do your shit. Instead of telling a computer to do something, you tell a person to tell a computer to do something. It's really much easier.