New Language, New Methods
19 Jan 2022My experiences so far
At this point in my time as a Computer Science student, I have been exposed to and learned three programming languages; Java, C, and (some) C++. With the start of a Software Engineering class, that number increases to four with my first exposure to Javascript.
From what I have learned up to this point, there were some things about Javascript that caught my attention. For instance, Javascript does not care what is put into an array. An array can contain things that all have different data types; you could put in an integer, a string, and a boolean all in the same array. I have yet to try using this ability with arrays, but I would already imagine that the versatility of Javascript arrays would come in handy in this class.
Another quality that makes Javascript different to the other languages I’ve used is what can be done using functions. In particular, functions can be treated as data that can be assigned and reassigned to variables and the ability to use functions as function parameters. It is something I have not really seen in my experiences in other languages aside from making use of C++’s reference.
What I have ahead of me
The teaching method my Software Engineering class is using is referred to as “athletic software engineering”. To briefly explain the process, it is built around “WODs” (workout of the day), short timed assignments where you must write code to fulfil the requirements provided. At this point, I have done four WODs in my process of learning Javascript, with two of them being “practice WODs”, where I was allowed to repeat until I could finish within the recommended times. Although the time constraints are a bit nerve-racking to deal with, I think the preparation required to be ready for these assignments and the need to think quickly are helpful in getting used to working with Javascript.