Why Learning JavaScript Is A Big Investment Today?

One of the hottest topics in the programming community is about the top programming languages out there. Some talk about programming languages that are dying. Others express their hatred for dynamically typed languages like JavaScript. Perhaps, you have heard about the saying that “PHP is dying”.

Despite all the different opinions out there, one thing is certain about JavaScript — you can’t possibly lose by learning it. It is true that the language is old and has some weird parts in it, but we can’t deny the fact that it is being adopted more than ever.

In this article, I will try to cover why I think that learning JavaScript is a big investment today and among the greatest technologies that one can learn.

1. You can build anything with it.

By anything, I mean: any application that you could think of. Web applications more or less need JavaScript, since it is the main language that runs in the browser. JavaScript is the language of the Web, and you can write both frontend and backend code with JavaScript exclusively.

Desktop applications can also be built with JavaScript. In fact, many of the apps that we tend to use daily are built with JavaScript and more specifically the Electron framework, like Visual Studio Code, Discord and WhatsApp amongst others.

Even mobile applications can be built with JavaScript. With React Native, you can easily build one and you don’t have to learn anything else than the web technologies that you probably already know if you’re into web development.

You can even use JavaScript in cloud development and write your AWS cloud functions with JavaScript for example. In short terms, the opportunities are endless.

2. The demand for JavaScript professionals is huge.

It’s probably not a secret that there is an enormous demand for developers who know JavaScript well. Since JavaScript runs in the browser and a lot of applications are browser-based, it is natural that companies search for developers who master JavaScript. If you focus on learning it thoroughly and mastering the concepts of it, then you won’t have a problem finding a job anywhere.

If you are thinking about career switching or simply interested in learning how to program, then JavaScript is a great starting point. I’d suggest taking a look at the opening software development job ads in your area, and you will quickly notice that a big amount of them are demanding some sort of knowledge about JavaScript. It is common to see employers searching for developers who master one or more of the modern JavaScript frameworks/libraries like React, Vue and Angular. But more than anything else, there is a need for developers who know the language itself and understand it on a deeper level.

3. It is the most popular programming language in the world.

Some statistics differ, but surveys on Stack Overflow over the last years indicate that JavaScript is the most popular programming language among developers. There is no other language where questions and answers on Stack Overflow are posted as much as JavaScript. One big reason for this is probably the fact that JavaScript has no real competitor in terms of frontend technologies. Sure, some new technologies like C# and Blazor, or WebAssembly are arising, but it is quite unlikely that these technologies will replace JavaScript.

This does not mean that most developers necessarily like the language. It is the most popular language in terms of usage, but not necessarily the hottest language in terms of its features and its design. There are some developers who express deep hatred for it mainly because of some of the strange parts of it that might not make much sense. Those parts are beyond the scope of this article, but it is good to know that even though a programming language is popular, it doesn’t mean that it is designed in a perfect way or that it doesn’t have some less good parts to it.

A common argument that some JavaScript haters use is that it lacks strict typing, which makes it more error-prone by nature. This problem can actually be dealt with today by using TypeScript, a superset designed by Microsoft to add a typing system to JavaScript. For those who don’t understand what types are, they basically are a way to add safety to the code and minimize the risk of errors and bugs in the software.

4. It is easy to jump into and learn.

The language in its essence is quite simple to learn. It was the first programming language that I really started to dive deep into, and it appealed to me a lot that I could write code that the browser would run, and I could see instant results in front of me. There are some harder concepts in JavaScript, and some weird parts of it that take time to grasp, but you can easily find great explanations to those parts on the Web.

If you have never coded a line before, JavaScript is a good language to start with. It is easy to get your feet wet with it, and the core concepts of it are simple.

When I started learning JavaScript, I followed some tutorials about writing JavaScript which runs in the browser, which is usually referred to as frontend programming. Any type of dynamic functionality and interactivity which you see in browser-based apps will usually be built with JavaScript. As you nail the core concepts, you can build smaller apps like little games, or todo-list apps and things of that nature.

I would suggest looking at the free resources available online and YouTube. You have lots of written as well as recorded tutorials with which you can hit the ground running quickly.

5. The JavaScript community is awesome and innovative.

I honestly don’t think that there is any programming community that is as innovative as the JavaScript community. The fact that NPM (Node Package Manager) has more than a million packages says a lot about how much developers contribute to the JavaScript ecosystem. You will quickly find answers to most of your JavaScript-related questions on Stack Overflow. The support is huge and there are many who share a big passion for the language and the technologies surrounding it, which makes it very comfortable for a developer to work with JavaScript.

It is mind-blowing to see how much you can do with JavaScript. And it all goes down to passionate developers who build these tools and technologies and contribute to them. The JavaScript open-source projects are plenty, and you can contribute to them yourself if you find something which interests you.

Conclusion

The more you dive deeper into JavaScript by solidifying your knowledge about it and then exploring the ecosystem, the more passionate you will become. The natural step will then be to transition from being a pure consumer of the technologies into becoming a creator of those frameworks and libraries. Even though there are already lots of projects and built tools in the JavaScript land, you can still contribute to them or even go further and invent something new which does things better than what current technologies do.

These are probably the greatest reasons why you should invest in learning JavaScript today. The learning resources online are plenty. You even have free books online about JavaScript, like “Eloquent JavaScript” (google it) and “You Don’t Know JavaScript”.

So, if you’re considering to learn JavaScript in 2020-2021, then don’t hesitate. Start right away! You won’t regret it, I promise you.