The Codecademy class for Javascript covers a lot of ground. It teaches the JavaScript language alongside some programming fundamentals. I thought it was a decent introduction but it's hard to gauge what it would look like to fresh eyes.

A side effect of the style meant the pacing can be frustrating when I'm already familiar with programming but not familiar with the JavaScript specifics. Some places would have a lot of repetition on general concepts I knew ("yes, yes, move on") and followed by a brief mention of something uniquely JavaScript ("wait, I wanted more information on that.") before moving on. Example: JSON.

The class covered some basics of object-oriented programming, but not much explanation on the why behind it. In the context of simple programming exercises, OOP looks like unnecessary overhead. Maybe the creators of the class decided that is out of scope. People will learn about organization and object hierarchy as they get exposure to more complex tasks sometime down the line.

As a C/C++/Java/C# veteran, I look upon JavaScript's type system with some suspicion. It is extremely flexible, which can be very powerful when used correctly, but it seems very easy to shoot myself in the foot. The fact that most efforts to improve JavaScript (Dart, TypeScript, etc.) introduce a stronger type system tells me I'm not alone in this suspicion.

In the web world, where projects are built on top of a set of libraries talking to each other via JavaSript, the type system means there's nothing really keeping one library from trampling all over (uh... "adding features to") the types defined in another library. The chaotic churning of types sound like a very tough class of problems to debug. That's the theory, anyway. I expect real-world practice to be one of three possibilities:

  1. It's under control: There are conventions in place, or maybe there are tools to manage it, or at least debugging aids to detect chaos in progress.
  2. It's not a problem: Despite my paranoia, in practice just because the type system is flexible doesn't mean it is abused.
  3. It's exactly as bad as you think it is. We deal: Oh I hope it's not this one.