Adam Bell

Javascript is the Internet, and the Internet is Vast

17 Jan 2024

Javascript and the Internet

JavaScript is a fascinating programming language, given that a whopping 98.7% of websites on the internet today utilize JavaScript (W3Techs). I had always heard that JavaScript was important for web development, but I had no idea that practically every website is functional thanks to JS. Responsible for making websites and web apps interactive, the internet would be very boring without JavaScript. It is difficult to overstate the importance of this interactivity, considering that millions of people surf the internet every day. This is a big reason why I am excited to become proficient in it.

My thoughts on Javascript

I like JavaScript as a programming language, but this may be because it was one of the first languages I was exposed to, and I don’t have many other languages in my repertoire to compare it to. Perhaps as I continue to learn more languages, my opinion of it will change. Before enrolling in my undergraduate Computer Science degree at the University of Hawaii Manoa, I had taken some online programming courses that primarily focused on web development. This gave me exposure to HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. For these reasons, ES6 was more of a review than a lesson, although it was very helpful to refresh my knowledge of the language from the ground up. The language of JavaScript itself seems intuitive to me, even when considering some of the shorthand syntax that is not explicitly obvious. Once you know the syntax, I think that it’s fairly easy to remember. Overall, in my brief experience, I have found JavaScript to be similar to Java, although JavaScript is more nuanced and versatile.

Athletic Software Engineering

I have a love/hate relationship with athletic software engineering and the practice of WODs (Workout Of the Day). On one hand, I find the time limit and the concern of losing all credit for a given task very stressful. I am worried this stress might cause me to make silly mistakes that I could have fixed with more time. On the other hand, I think this is great practice for real-world technical interviews for software engineers. I know that in due time I will be grateful for having gone through this process, but right now it is challenging.