JS is one of the most popular programming languages in the world right now and it has been used on multiple platforms. Created in 1995, JS has come a long way. Traditionally being just a web scripting language JS had nothing much to offer than client-side programming and what do I mean by that? JS previously was just used to program on a webpage for stuff like animating, act according to events on browser etc but it is much more than that now. JS is more versatile, JS can handle tasks pretty well and it has large developer community. So why should you really learn JS?
JavaScript Logo
- Easy to learn
JavaScript is easy to learn for every people who have some or no programming experience at all. If you want to learn JS and have previous experience on languages such as C, C++ then it will be very easy for you to switch to JS as it inherits syntaxes from these languages. JS can be implemented very well with HTML and CSS and learning them is not difficult so it will be easy to expand that knowledge with JS.
JS syntax: if-else condition (left) & different loops (right)
2. JavaScript runs on a web browser.
JS can be written in computers with any specifications. Android studio can be problematic for people who don’t have a powerful computer, writing iOS apps can be a headache for many developers as they definitely require MAC OS etc. But this is not the case for JS. JS can run on a browser and you can even open a developer’s console on a web browser and start writing JavaScript codes.
JavaScript on Google Chrome’s web developer console
3. Free
Almost everything required to learn or implement JS is free. You can get text editors for free, libraries for free, frameworks for free etc. Also, you are going to get a lot of learning contents on youtube, codeacademy, w3schools, freecodecamp etc for free. Seems like it is not difficult to start with right?
4. Large developers community.
JS is widely popular among developers (especially full stack/front end). On a survey done among 64 thousand developers all around the world, stack overflow concluded that JS was the most popular and widely used full stack web development technology. You can get answers to your queries quicker than ever. In stack overflow, one question about JS is asked every 3 seconds. So that gives a clear idea about its popularity.
Stack Overflow Survey Results
5. Runs everywhere.
Traditionally, JS was meant to run on a web browser only but after the introduction of node.js to the world in 2009 and it changed a lot of things. JS would then start to run on a web server as well. So not just for client-side programming, JS would now also be used for server-side programming.
Node.Js
6. Frameworks and Libraries.
The most amazing thing about JavaScript is the availability of open source frameworks and libraries. Creating JS based applications have never been so easier. You just imagine the purpose of your application, you have got a framework to fulfil that purpose. Wanna create android apps? Should you install Android Studio? No need. React.js can do that for you. Wanna create single page web applications? Angular or vue.js can do it. I believe that due to this reason, JS should be the most focused language to learn in 2018.
Top 5 JS frameworks
JavaScript has gone through really bad days and has reached this height. There hasn’t been a better time to learn JavaScript than now. Job scope, ease of learning, reliability and many other factors suggest that JS should be the language that you should be using for your upcoming projects. Browse the internet for a while, you’ll find thousands of resources to learn JS. Start now, you’ll not regret.