Making the jump from beginner to advanced JavaScript developer

Over the last few years, I’ve taught hundreds of people JavaScript.

One of the biggest and most challenges people making the leap from a beginner to an advanced JS developer is learning to “think in JavaScript.”

You can memorize (or look up) JavaScript methods and browser APIs to do all sorts of things. Knowing which approaches to use and when to use them are the hard parts. Those come with time and experience.

Tesla and Ford

There’s an anecdote that frequently makes its rounds on the internet:

Nikola Tesla visited Henry Ford at his factory, which was having some kind of difficulty. Ford asked Tesla if he could help identify the problem area.

Tesla walked up to a wall of boilerplate and made a small X in chalk on one of the plates. Ford was thrilled, and told him to send an invoice. The bill arrived, for $10,000. Ford asked for a breakdown.

Tesla sent another invoice, indicating a $1 charge for marking the wall with an X, and $9,999 for knowing where to put it.

The story is almost certainly made up, but the lesson is spot on.

The difference between a junior developer and a senior one is not that the senior dev has memorized more approaches, but that she can solve problems better and knows which approaches to use for any given challenge.

Learning how to solve problems better

This is all a long winded way of letting you know that registration for the next session of the Vanilla JS Academy has just opened up.

The program kicks off on May 6, and runs for eight weeks.

During the eight-weight program, you’ll work on 12 awesome projects, participate in weekly office hours, and join a supportive network of other students. The program covers everything from DOM manipulation basics to working with APIs to building JavaScript apps.

It’s intense, immersive, and project-based, and you’ll be pushed to your limits as a developer.

If that sounds interesting, you can save 40% on registration from now through Sunday with the code EarlyBird at checkout.

Let’s make 2019 the year you level up your JavaScript skills. If you have any questions, reach out and let me know.