Have you ever seen a website that just left you awestruck? With beautiful designs, animations, or responsive elements, some sites are like a work of art. Chances are, they’ve been created using JavaScript.
On top of being widely used and super versatile, it’s also a language that a lot of beginner programmers choose to learn. If you’re one to be on the brink of starting your coding journey, or you’re just not 100% sure if JavaScript would be the right choice, we’re here to help.
But first, let’s see where this programming language came from. Then, let’s explore the 5 main reasons you’d be making the right choice by learning JavaScript.
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JavaScript is (almost) as old as the web
In the early-mid 90s,’ the internet became available to wider audiences thanks to personal computers and browsers. At this time, two key players in the browser wars were competing for the web’s dominance: Netscape and Microsoft. Netscape’s flagship browser Navigator and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer went head to head. JavaScript was initially a scripting language for Netscape’s browser only, but after its release, more and more browsers added JavaScript support.
The web needed a way to become more dynamic with animations, interactions, and small automation. And JavaScript was the way to do it. Since then, the language has become one of the most widely-used programming languages. And there are a ton of benefits if you decide to master it.
Now let’s see our list! Here’s why learning JavaScript is the right choice:
1. You can't bypass JavaScript on the web
JavaScript is the universal programming language of the web. Today, it’s used by 98.3% of all websites, according to W3Techs. So it’s not an over-exaggeration when we say you cannot pass it by.
Google’s search results that pop up as you type appear with JavaScript, and Microsoft built its Edge web browser with it. And Facebook invented its way of delivering JavaScript to speed up its site (each section of your Facebook page is a collection of independent JavaScript applications).
The world wide web is built with this programming language, so naturally, there’s no way of getting around it. And you definitely shouldn’t.
2. It's an in-demand skill on the job market
If you check out Statista’s 2022 worldwide survey, you’ll see that JavaScript is officially the most-used programming language globally. 65% of programmers use it. And it’s a ubiquitous language, appearing in the greatest percentage of job postings. So while it’s not necessarily the most beloved language (everybody has their preferences), it’s the most widely used.
According a recent survey, JavaScript is the most in-demand IT skill. So learning it can give you amazing advantages on the job market and help you future-proof your skillset.
3. You can bring amazing features to websites
Once, the internet was just displaying texts, without any interactive behaviour. Today, JavaScript brings interactivity, responsiveness, and often personality to sites. All browsers support JavaScript, which allows videos, animations and other media to get displayed beautifully. The main component of the web are HTML and CSS. They mark up websites’ contents, but you need JavaScript to make them come to life.
Check out this amazing online graphic novel by SBS. Or tune in to the world’s radio stations online with Radio Garden. None of this type of web content would be possible to pull off without JavaScript.
So if you’re being called to make beautiful, responsive websites with amazing UX (user experience), put JavaScript on your ‘to-learn list’ quickly.
4. It's more than just a front-end programming language
It’s a scripting language (so its scripts need to run within a browser or an interpreter), and it’s not bound to just front-end or back-end development. When combined with interpreters like Node.js, its versatility really seems endless. Other than interactive elements for websites, you can harness JavaScript to:
- Create web and mobile applications – Check out some of the top apps from world-famous companies like Netflix, Linkedin, Paypal, or Uber – they’re all built using the Node.js interpreter, which is a runtime environment for JavaScript code. Developers can use interpreters and various frameworks to develop and build web and mobile apps, not just web pages.
- Build web servers and server-side applications – Beyond websites and apps, developers can use JavaScript to build simple web servers and develop the back-end infrastructure using Node.js.
- Build games – You can use JavaScript to build games! If you have an excellent idea for a new game, Javascript will let you create it in either 2D or 3D. Gaming engines like Pixi.js and Physics JS for example, can be used to build a video game.
- Develop Artificial Intelligence – Currently, most AI apps use R or Python, but JavaScript has a great future as an AI language. Several JavaScript AI frameworks are emerging that make it possible to execute AI tasks in the browser. The Tensorflow Javascript library is also available for machine learning tasks.
5. It's easy to learn
JavaScript is a multi-paradigm scripting language, so it supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles too. We’d say that it’s a relatively easy programming language to learn as a beginner. Also, if you do master JavaScript, you’ll be able to do a variety of things with it.
Learning it as your first language is great because you can achieve a lot with it in a short time. You might be able to learn Python a bit quicker, thanks to its simplistic language. But you won’t be able to do both front-end and back-end development with Python – you can do more spectacular things with JavaScript a lot earlier.
You don’t need too much tech-savviness to make your JavaScript code work. You can simply run it with a browser. However, if you want to go deeper than just the code, there’ll be more complex things you need to grasp. And a well-structured study plan and guidance will do you a lot.
Consider how you'll learn JavaScript
Beginners often miss an important point when they decide to learn JavaScript: that this programming language will bring about a ton of questions, and having some structure and extra guidance on your learning journey will be invaluable.
When you want to go past simply writing the code, you’ll need to dip your toes into server-side solutions, database handling, front-end development, and UX (user experience) too. JavaScript will enforce a “full-stack development view” for anyone immersing themselves in it. And all this can be hard to grasp without help and an all-encompassing view of software development.
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