Intro

<p>Who should be taking this course? This is a crash course in JavaScript, where our goal is to teach you everything you need to know to do JavaScript in 4 hours. With that said this course does not fit everyone: it%u2019s actually targeted at people who have a background in code. </p> <h3>What youll learn</h3> <p> We are going to learn everything there is to know about the basics of JavaScript but we are not going to focus on coding basics as we have a separate 12 hour session dedicated to that. If you have little or no coding experience, we suggest you delve into the <a href="/category/developer-basics">Developer Basics Section</a>: this course covers developer basics in detail. It will help you learn programming basic building blocks step by step to evolve or refresh your coding skills from scratch. For more information please visit the <a href="/category/developer-basics">Developer Basics Section</a> and build your programming foundation. </p> <p> Let us introduce you to JavaScript without turning it into a history lesson. The first word may be "Java" but I assure you Java and JavaScript are completely different languages. JavaScript is a Scripting language of the web which helps you validate forms, communicate with the server, and much more. All modern browsers such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Opera have a JavaScript interpreter which interprets JavaScript code and runs it. </p> <p> By the way, each different browser has its own version of the JavaScript interpreter %u2013 meaning each also has different implementation bugs! This can make things it sometimes very tricky, as it's very important to test your code in all main browsers. Doing so will save you a flood of angry emails from IE users, for instance, if your code fails in IE! </p> <h3>What do you need to start learning JavaScript?</h3> <p> Not much: a text editor, a browser and the will to succeed. You can use any free plain text editor like Notepad on Windows, or Smultron on Mac for code. The other option is a paid text editor like Adobe DreamWeaver which will also give you code hints and color coding. We suggest that you not use code hints if you are new to code: you'll learn much better without that crutch. </p> <p> If you want to follow the tutorial and work on the same website we are in the videos, then please feel free to download the project files from the <a href="/02geek/javascript/101.html">course home page</a>. </p>