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I have completed codeacademy twice, freecodecamp twice and read a few online articles...I believe I now have a good understanding of the fundamentals of Javascript.
However, I feel lost in terms of where to go next. People say build projects, but where do I start? How do I plan? Even though I know the fundamentals of Javascript, I still feel there is a lot to learn. I feel like I will only truly start understanding Javascript once I start putting projects together but I cant think of any.
Also, codeacademy, freecodecamp and these other online course websites dont seem to really teach DOM manipulation. Is there any online coding sites, similar to the ones mentioned, which will allow me to practice DOM manipulation?
I would be hufely grateful if people who have developed their understanding in Javascript can give me some advice based on how they did it.
I am just sitting here staring at my laptop and going back and forth. I cant really seem to figure out what to do next, now that I have gained a basic understanding of the core concepts of Javascript. Please guys, help!
This is not a very good question, but I still would like to try and explain.
Questions you need to ask yourself
Frontend or backend js?
I assume frontend based on the "DOM manipulation" part, but there is also Node.js for the backend with it's own unique API to use and interact with the operating system.
Do I want to use libraries and/or frameworks
Depending on your needs and preferences you will come in touch with these things, they all have their own learning curve, on top of learning js. Libraries are mostly just function in order to help you. However frameworks like Vue and Angular require a way of writing your code that is like it's own language. (opinionated)
What version(s) of js and browsers do you want to support?
Javascript has evolved over time and the javascript engines in browsers as well. Older IE browsers will be harder to support without the help of a library like jQuery.
Now about the learning part and where you can practice.
There are probably thousands of great sites to practice, however I will give you my favorites.
The stackoverflow documentation on javascript (top navigation on this page)
I will get hate for this: W3Schools
To read the docs on Mozilla
interactive on both codeschool and codeacademy
JSFiddle for practicing in a closed environment
https://bento.io/topic/javascript
https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/javascript/
http://www.allitebooks.com/ for specific ebooks
Have a look at what frameworks are popular nowadays and why. If they suit your needs. Learn them one or two at a time but not more, so you won't mix them all up in the end. Try to at least understand OOP in javascript even if you don't intend to use it later. Anyone feel free to expand this answer because it is hard to cover it all myself.
I recently began as a web designer but spend more and more time learning front end web development. I enjoy Javascript and the work. I am very interested in creating web applications unfortunately I find that Javascript frameworks change so quickly. I began learning Angular 1.3 only to find the release of 2.0 to kill my interest. I also worry that learning frameworks will not help my skill as a developer only as a framework user. It makes me want to just develop with modular Vanilla.
What recommendations do you have for creating web applications with this problem in mind? I greatly appreciate your comments.
One of the best things you can learn as a developer is to ALWAYS find a solution before creating one.
Yes, vanilla Javascript surely has it's place, for as you progress as a developer, you too will want to write your own javascript.
I recently just got into MEAN stack development, and I can definitely say if I were to try to write all of this by hand, especially if your not an expert, would be a nightmare, if not impossible/impractical.
I understand the craving / desire, we all have it. We start to code and feel like wizards when we can conjure up this neat program we build all by ourselves. But we also have to realize there is a little bit of reasoning behind utilizing frameworks, just take this into perspective, taking MEAN stack as an example,
Right now, there are a team of developers working on MongoDB, a team of developers working on Angular, Express, NodeJS etc.
Each of these frameworks is being FOCUSED on and perfected, think about that for a second. These aren't things that are just thrown together, these are strong written frameworks, and when combined together, can make an awesome toolset.
Building your own library can also be a good idea, and I would encourage it, especially for CUSTOM solutions. This can be fun and creative.
However, as for making the strongest web framework you can have, it would take more work than whats practical. Utilizing the work of others is one of the most important things you can do as a developer! Good luck.
You could resort to Google Trends to figure out which technologies last and where the trend is going. A quick research points very much to the study of jQuery (even though AngularJS trend is more impressive):
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=AngularJS%2C%20%2Fm%2F0268gyp%2C%20%2Fm%2F02p97&cmpt=q&tz=
Going Vanilla is always a good idea in order to strengthen your understanding of the fundamentals - learning some popular frameworks is essential to work productively and find good projects!
I have just been told that some of the projects I have to work on use Ember.js framework. It looks interesting and I want to gain more knowledge on it. I have also seen the official site but I think there's still a lack of proper tutorial for a beginner. Moreover, I just have a basic knowledge of Javascript. Where should I begin first? Javascript or head straight to Ember.js?
Edit: I would love to see suggestions from all Javascript developers and beginners how they started learning Javascript.
What I am planning to do is, read Eloquent Javascript and Head straight into Ember.js. If I am stuck on anything I can refer to SO.
Personally, as #sl7_7, I began learning JS with Ember. So my answer should be Ember specific.
I learned them by reading the few tutorials, guide and examples I found, but essentially by reading the source code.
There are a lot of example available, but there are sometimes hard to find.
First, a list of useful blogs :
https://github.com/emberjs/ember.js/wiki
http://emberjs.com/
https://kippt.com/zaplitny/emberjs
http://trek.github.com/ you should read it
http://emberjs.tumblr.com/ (does not seem to be still updated?)
http://codebrief.com/ - a blog written by Gordon L. Hempton
http://www.cerebris.com/blog/ - written by Dan Gebhardt
http://www.emberist.com/ - another really interesting blog for Ember, written by Peter Wagenet
http://www.tuanleaded.com/blog/2012/04/getting-started-with-ember-js-the-missing-to-dos-manual/
And then, some examples :
https://github.com/bazzel/ember-sample2 - a simple and recent Rails & Ember example written in Coffeescript. It contains a useful Ember.Router example
https://github.com/elucid/ember-tunes - another simple Ember example
https://github.com/ghempton/ember-router-example - an Ember.Router example
https://github.com/pangratz/dashboard/ - a simple Github dashboard
https://speakerdeck.com/bestie/tastebuds-radio-a-rapidly-developed-ember-dot-js-app - A speaker deck on a "rapidly developed app"
It is possible that I forgot many site, so just add a comment and I'll update my answer.
You have to learn javascript first. Ember.js is a library for javascript, and thus is written in javascript, and thus is interfaced through javascript. Starting with ember.js is running before you can walk.
That said, here are a few resources to get you started:
Javascript:
Mozilla Tutorial
Ember.js:
Adobe Tutorial
You would do better learning Javascript first. You can head on to Javascript.is(sexy) by Richard Bovell. He does a magnificent job of teaching JS basic and advanced concepts.
Can anyone tell me how to detect faces in a static picture using Ruby or Javascript?
If you are going to try and write something from scratch, there is a great explanation of the process on the Carnegie Mellon Website - neat graphics too.
However, your best bet is probably trying to hook into the Opensource Computer Vision project. Here is a good tutorial on using OpenCV for facial recognition.
Since the other answers to that interesting question are mostly outdated now, here the 2012 solution:
Using jQuery with jquery.objectdetect:
$("#faces").objectdetect("all", {classifier: objectdetect.frontalface}, function(coords) {
// Do something with the face coordinates
});
Using jQuery with jquery.facedetection:
var coords = $("#faces").faceDetection();
// Do something with the face coordinates
Not using jQuery: Both plugins are based on stand-alone libraries that do not depend on jQuery at all.
In reply to #joeforker who said
"If you really don't understand that the notion JQuery can detect
faces is a joke, you need to learn a lot before you will be ready to
detect faces."
Or you just have to wait a year or two ;)
It looks like you are new to programming. Perhaps you have an advanced mathematics degree? If you really don't understand that the notion JQuery can detect faces is a joke, you need to learn a lot before you will be ready to detect faces. If you're lucky you can find an easy out-of-the-box solution. Unfortunately, face recognition is in the class of problems that tend to lack easy out of the box solutions. JavaScript is right out.
http://rubyforge.org/projects/opencv/ is a Ruby binding to OpenCV. The pitiful documentation (autogenerated API docs only) at http://doc.blueruby.mydns.jp/opencv/ mentions a face_detect.rb that might be helpful. As with most bindings, you should also consult the documentation for the original library e.g. http://opencv.willowgarage.com/wiki/FaceDetection
You should also understand that face detection (where are the faces in this photo?) is a different and easier problem than face recognition (whose face is it).
I do not know if this question was properly answered or how you resolved it, but I recently encountered this problem myself. I'm currently investigating external API's to implement my solution. The two Ruby API's that I am currently comparing are rdetection and Face.com's API
I'm primarily using it for face-aware image-crop using ImageMagick, so your needs and results may differ.
Detecting faces reliably is one of the hard problems in Computer Science. Realistically, there's no practical way for you to do it using Ruby, JavaScript or any other application language using current technology. If you tell us why you need to detect faces then we might be able to suggest a practical alternative approach.
Collect a lot of cash and contact these guys for a good solution!
Wikipedia has a good article about this which also explains why you're trying to do something that is still extremely complex to do.
FRGC is also interesting... If you do find a solution, you can take part in this challenge.
This is a face recognition tutorial using Javascript and face recognition APIs using Mashape - http://blog.mashape.com/post/45712257463/face-recognition-using-javascript-and-mashape
It also lets you detect if the person is smiling or not :)
After some research and help from this thread I've decided to make a rubygem which can be found here:
EDIT:
Unfortunately rekognize decided to discontinue their services making this Gem obsolete.
This uses the face recognition API from rekognition.com.
Javascript Neural Nets have been used for OCR so should be possible if much harder for faces.
Face detection is done using intensive memory based algorithms, which actually go through the image data to detect face like patterns. They may be many facial recognition / Pattern recoginition algorithms and APIS available for free (or for a fee) which you can use/implement with Ruby or Javascript.
I know this is an old question, but if anyone happens on it like I did check these out: blog post, test page, and Github.
This should get you started. It's about using OpenCV with Ruby via FFI: http://rubysource.com/detecting-faces-with-ruby-ffi-in-a-nutshell/
I am a .NET webdev using ASP.NET, C# etc... I "learned" javascript in college 5+ years ago and can do basic jobs with it. But I wonder if it is useful to become proficient in it.
Why should I learn Javascript?
Is it more advantageous then learning JQuery or a different library?
Yes, definitely learn Javascript before you learn one of the libraries about. It's the whole walk-before-you-can-run thing.
Make sure you add these sites to your bookmarks:
Mozilla's developer site: This contains the reference to the Javascript API in Mozilla. This will help you make sure you're writing code that Firefox understands.
IE's site in Microsoft Developer Network: The same, for IE.
W3's reference of DOM for HTML: In most web applications today, the Javascript code manipulates the DOM, which is an internal keeping track of the objects displayed on screen (but you already knew that, right ?) This is the reference to the DOM API. It is language neutral, which means it does not target Javascript, but these methods exist in Javascript too.
Douglas Crockford' site: Doug Crockford is THE MAN when it comes down to Javascript. The articles in his page are a must read. Because Javascript has closures and first-class functions, he believes it is closer to Lisp and Scheme than to other languages. And he teaches you how to greatly improve your code with these language features.
Yahoo Developer network: You may also want to check this. I'm not a regular visitor to this site, though, so I can't really say much about it.
Yes, absolutely you should learn JavaScript if you are doing web development. I highly recommend JavaScript: The Good Parts, by Doug Crockford. And, JQuery is a great framework to use (this site uses it) -- it kind of depends on what you are trying to do -- YUI and ExtJS are also very nice.
The answer is simple.
Hands down yes. There's a reason that Google have made such a big fuss about the V8 JS engine for Chrome, why Mozilla are working on TraceMonkey for Firefox and why Webkit have been working on Squirrelfish for a while (now Squirrelfish extreme). It's because JS is becoming more popular by the day.
Javascript is one of those languages that spending a few hours learning will probably teach you 99% of what you will ever really use. I would imagine you are at the point in your learning of javascript that you know more than enough now and just learn one or more of the frameworks now.
I would recommend brushing up on your non-frameworked javascript first. Refreshing/learning basic concepts of dom manipulation and what not. Like learning how to build a linked list, stack or queue in C++ before learning how to use the STL (standard template libraries).
In addition to brushing up on straight javascript, it might be good to get into a framework that doesn't abstract and change the way things work so much, for instance Prototype. You code with it very much the same way you code with straight javascript. Read through the Prototype code, learn how to make classes, and do some fancy stuff. From experience, I can say reading through the Prototype.js helped me learn alot.
After messing around a bit, then I'd say go for jQuery. If jQuery didn't, literally, change the way you write code I'd say go for it first, but learning how to build classes and js inheritance and what not can be a very important lesson for someone who wants to become fluent in JS.
Learning javascript is recommended for any web application developer. Why?
You will better understand the possibilities, limitations and dangers related to developing a web application
It is a boost for your career, if you are working on a web application that has a user interface.
However, learning javascript is usually a trade-off between a programming language and another. You should consider whether javascript is relevant for your career or project.
Unless you want to really get into javascript, I think you'd be better off learning enough JS to leverage one of the tried and tested javascript libraries out there.
One thing nice about JavaScript is that it is quite different from mainstream languages such as C#, VB.NET or Java. Learning it, especially if you have occasions to use it, will give you another insight on programming, and that's always good. I think it's worth learning it.
If you are doing web development then at some point you are going to get exposed to Javascript or ECMAScript at some point in your career for any one of a number of reasons. At a minimum you should know enough Javascript to be able to be able to validate user input; however, the web is moving in the direction of using more an more Ajax so you should also know enough Javascript to properly leverage one of the major libraries out there such as jQuery.
As some of the other users have noted, you can learn most of what you need of Javascript on a day to day basis in a single day or a couple of afternoons. If you want to get more advanced with Javascript then you are going to have to invest much more time in learning the language but odds are that unless you seek out this type of work that you are not going to encounter something that a preexisting library doesn't already exist for.
If all you want is to do some simple UI-effects and the like, I suggest you just pick a library and go for it!
Using libraries eliminates all the flawed implementations of JavaScript and provides you with an API which is the same across all browsers. And if you're working together with others it is also a great way of implementing code-standards and best practices.
Learning a second programming language is always good.
By the sound of it, JavaScript is a language that you use, to it will be of practical use too. As a web dev, it has been recommended to me in a review that i learn at least basic JavaScript.
A library such as jQuery is essential for web development thse days, so you could learn that too.
I don't think a lot of deliberate learning makes sense (but of course you need some basic knowledge), but I also think after some years of web development you'll become pretty proficient in the language anyway :)
If you are a webdev then yes, you should be proficient with Javascript. Javascript is a major part of making web apps as interactive as desktop apps.
With that being said, learn to use one of the cross-browser compatible libraries like JQuery, Prototype, etc. We do not need to have any more single browser crud created using Javascript, just because any real man/woman rolls their own.
A few things to learn in Javascript:
1. Basic syntax
2. The various flavours of function declaration.
3. Passing functions around and how to use passed in functions.
I recommend Jeremy Keith's books: DOM Scripting and Bulletproof Ajax. After you become more fluent in JS I would recommend a JS library(I use jQuery, but that is not important).
JS is important to learn. You cannot use a framework without the proper understanding of how it works. That is doing things backwards.
i thing you should have a good knoloedge base of language specification and DOM (Document Object Model). it means,you shoud know how find/create "page object" an edit properties. Also you should have an idea of "object oriented" javascript tecniques, which the starting point of a lot of framework. you don't need learn specific framework if you don't use it. simple keep in mind generic base concept!
I'll go with the opposite answer most are putting out there. Learning javascript as a developer these days is almost pointless. The language is similar enough to java/C# that it's syntax and semantics shouldn't be lost on you.
What you should learn is jQuery.
As you use jQuery you'll pick up the most common things you'll ever need from javascript anyway.
If you're involved with the Web in anyway then the answer is "Yes, always". Maybe an embedded or system's programmer could get by without JavaScript, but not a webdev.
Most of the libraries are designed to alleviate some of the pain of interacting with a multitude of browsers. They will not abstract away core JavaScript functionality.
Yes, you should learn JavaScript. Sooner or later you will need to use it!