How Hard Is It to Learn JavaScript?

JavaScript is one of the most important programming languages for modern web development, after HTML and CSS. Along with PHP, it’s among the suite of languages that makes web pages dynamic and responsive. 

If we only had HTML and CSS, our web pages wouldn’t be able to auto-complete forms, load animations on the page, or update in real-time in response to users’ actions. To borrow a technical phrase, this would be what scientists call ‘really boring.’

So, if you want to make the kinds of websites people want to use and employers will pay you to work on, you’ll need to learn JavaScript. But how hard is it to learn JavaScript, and how long will it take?

It Depends On Your Background 

Undoubtedly, the biggest factor influencing how hard it is to learn JavaScript is whether you have any coding background. In my experience, learning to code is as much about learning a particularly strict, algorithmic way of thinking as it is mastering the syntax of any particular language. You have to learn how to take a task that would be extremely simple to describe to a human and learn instead to break it down into steps so small that a machine can do it. 

If you’ve ever crossed that threshold, JavaScript won’t be as hard to pick up. More specifically, JavaScript sits squarely within the Object-Oriented Approach to programming, along with languages like Python and Ruby. Explaining what exactly this means would be beyond the scope of the article, but just like Portuguese would be easier to learn if you already know Spanish, JavaScript will be easier to learn if you already know a similar language.

It Depends On Your Approach

Learning is a complicated endeavor, one that not enough people think about how to do well. This is a shame, since in the world of technology you’ll spend a lot more time learning new things than just comfortably sitting around knowing things.

A good approach to learning is like a good approach to going to the gym: each person needs to start by understanding their goals, their strengths, and their weaknesses. With this, they need to devise a learning plan which they iterate on when conditions change.

I’m not very good at learning in small windows of time, for example. But if you are, be sure to review JavaScript ideas while you’re riding in to work. Fill the little spaces in the day, like standing in line at the grocery store, with learning that’ll profit you for the rest of your life. 

Maybe most importantly, think seriously about your approach to learning. It doesn’t matter how ineffective your initial strategy is; if you constantly work to improve it, you’ll get somewhere worth going. 

If You Want It Badly Enough, Anything Is Possible 

I hate to break it to you, but learning to code is tough. You’re probably feel inadequate during the process. You can’t let this stop you. Always keep in mind that whatever you’re good at now, you were once a total novice at. Whatever your skills are (chess, dancing, baking), once upon a time you moved your first chess piece, stepped into your first dance studio, burned your first batch of cookies.

But you kept showing up, and now look where you are! Coding isn’t fundamentally different. Like most things in life, the majority of success is just putting in the hours.