What is the Fastest Way to Learn JavaScript?

Sometimes, students need to gain a new skill quickly. They may be seeking a change of career, want to move ahead in their current career, or need to tackle a new project. Several kinds of instruction offer fast learning, but students’ actual speed will vary depending on their existing experience, their learning goals, and their fit with each instructional style. This article will address the fastest ways to learn JavaScript and discuss how each type might match a student’s needs.

Free Resources: For Basics and Topics

Free lessons, whether found in textbooks or viewed as video tutorials, can be valuable resources for beginning coders or experienced programmers looking for solutions to specific problems. Some answers may be as close as an online search, whether the question is “What is JavaScript?” or “How can I write a login screen with JavaScript?” Students can find free video lessons in many places: on social media sites like YouTube, technical education sites like Codefinity, and even some JavaScript-specific sites like Learn-js.org. For dedicated students or those already familiar with other coding languages, these free resources can provide a fast way to start learning JavaScript. 

However, each of these sources can have drawbacks. Videos on social media sites vary widely in quality, depending on the knowledge and instructional ability of their creators. Technical sites usually produce higher-quality lessons, as their free offerings are often a subset of their paid content, but they limit their free content to encourage visitors to purchase other lessons. JavaScript-specific free sites are a mixture of these types, with generally knowledgeable users but no guarantee of instructional quality.

Thus, while free resources are easy to access and can give students a fast start, they are not the fastest way to gain a complete education. Learners who need more in-depth instruction, especially those without prior coding experience, will not find free resources as useful. They will spend much longer searching for resources, trying to resolve difficult topics, and checking their progress. Free lessons also cannot provide personalized feedback, so mistakes and misunderstandings can persist longer without correction. A well-organized and -supported paid course avoids these delays and prepares students faster overall.

Introductory Classes: For Students Starting with JavaScript

Introductory classes, as offered by professional training schools like Noble Desktop, can teach students important starting skills in an immersive, detailed format while still maintaining a quick pace. For JavaScript, an introductory course should teach the language’s key features, basic commands and syntax, techniques for constructing longer scripts, and examples of the language’s applications. This work, including time for students to practice with sample problems and small projects, can be completed in a few hours over one or a few days. Upon completion of a short introductory class, students should be able to create and edit simple JavaScript programs. These classes also prepare students to learn more complex techniques and tools later. For busy professionals who only need an entry point or students exploring new skills, this level of instruction may be sufficient, and the shorter class length is more convenient. Short classes are also offered more frequently and with a greater variety of dates and times. 

This brevity and skill-oriented approach means that introductory classes must omit most discussion of JavaScript’s history, recent developments, extended libraries, and specialized applications. Introductory classes may also limit their lessons further, only addressing the uses of JavaScript within a particular project type, such as webpage design or mobile application development. Students who want to understand JavaScript more fully or need broader expertise applicable to a wide range of projects will either need to take additional JavaScript courses later or for a more efficient approach, should consider a bootcamp or certificate course in JavaScript development.

Bootcamps: Toward Professional Skill

Bootcamps provide a more thorough training program for JavaScript, covering topics beyond basic coding such as JavaScript’s popular libraries and other useful tools. Bootcamp courses often have a specific career focus, such as web application development, teaching students methods appropriate for projects within that career. For example, a JavaScript bootcamp on web development would include programming techniques related to database access, user interfaces, and security features. Students completing a bootcamp course are better prepared to use their skills in a professional capacity, especially if they have prior experience or study in a related field (e.g. front end web development).

Due to their additional curriculum, JavaScript bootcamps take much longer than introductory or single-topic courses and usually last for several weeks, even on a full-time schedule. Still, they are faster overall than taking separate lessons for each topic, since their advanced topics often flow out of the early lessons. They also tend to have a condensed schedule, asking students to complete practice work outside of class to keep up with new topics. Thus, bootcamps can be an effective way to gain a strong understanding of JavaScript without the extended time commitment of a professional training course or college course. Note, however, that bootcamps exclude material outside of their focus, such as unrelated libraries and newer JavaScript developments and releases.

Certificate Granting Programs: For Aspiring Professionals

JavaScript certificate programs prepare students to seek employment with their skills, ensuring that students have the education necessary to use JavaScript for a wide variety of projects. These programs combine the content of multiple bootcamp-level courses into a complete study of JavaScript, including not only general programming methods but also the advanced techniques and tools used by active developers. Professional trainers like Noble Desktop offer these certificate programs as a midpoint between more limited bootcamp classes and the longer degree programs offered by colleges and vocational schools. While certificate programs do require multiple weeks of full-time study (or several months for part-time students), they are still shorter than the one to four years required by most degree programs. At the end of their studies, students receive an accredited certificate. Plus, instructors provide career guidance and guide students through projects that form a starting professional portfolio. 

Certificate programs must still concentrate on particular careers, such as web development or software development, omitting material that would be included in a thorough college-level course. They also do not address further development of the language or programming in other languages. Students interested in the origins, theory, and future of JavaScript might be better served by a degree program. However, students wanting to use JavaScript sooner, to further their careers, will find certificate programs a more manageable alternative.

On-Demand Courses: It’s Hard to Tell

Another option for both early and advanced JavaScript students is on-demand learning, also called self-paced or asynchronous study. On-demand courses present their material in the form of written and pre-recorded video lessons that each student can study on their preferred schedule. Some on-demand programs offer lessons in packaged sets, others on a subscription basis for access, and still others, as individual purchases. Students are responsible for selecting the programs or lessons they need and maintaining their study schedule. A significant drawback of on-demand lessons is their limited feedback, which can add delays due to questions and difficult topics, even if an instructor is eventually available via phone, email, or online chat. For these reasons, it can be difficult to estimate how long a given student’s on-demand study might take. 

For students seeking a brief introduction to JavaScript or training in a specific programming technique, on-demand classes can be a quicker option, without the waiting time required by a live class schedule. This time savings especially applies to highly motivated students and those with prior programming knowledge, advantages that help to overcome the limited feedback provided by on-demand lessons. For more complete JavaScript courses, though, or for students studying programming for the first time, on-demand courses can be slower than their live equivalents. Diagnosing coding errors becomes increasingly difficult as programs grow longer and more complex, causing on-demand learners to slow down while they search or wait for answers. For career-focused training, on-demand courses almost always take longer than bootcamp or certificate programs of the same depth. On-demand courses also provide less career guidance than professional training programs.

Learn JavaScript with Noble Desktop

Noble Desktop’s shortest class on JavaScript is an introductory class teaching JavaScript’s uses for front end web development, JavaScript for Front-End. This class can be completed in just a few days but teaches enough about JavaScript programming to allow students to use the language to create and edit webpages. The class prerequisites do recommend that students have some prior knowledge of webpage creation, including experience coding in HTML and CSS. The course begins with a tutorial on simple or ‘vanilla’ JavaScript, addressing the language’s basic concepts, terms, commands, and coding techniques. The instructor then builds on these concepts with specific examples to demonstrate their use in webpage construction. The second half of the course teaches an animation tool built on JavaScript, the GreenSock Animation Platform (GSAP), which creators can use to quickly add animated features to webpages. Students then practice these techniques in several short projects, guided by both the instructor and a course workbook. This class awards a certificate upon completion, and students can repeat the class once for free within a year.

A longer, more complete, and more career-focused course, Noble Desktop’s JavaScript Programming Bootcamp, also teaches JavaScript for its uses in web development. It has the same prerequisites as Noble Desktop’s other JavaScript courses: prior experience coding in HTML and CSS, ideally for web design or front end web development. Through multiple classes over several weeks, students first learn to code in JavaScript, starting from the language’s fundamentals and then progressing through more intermediate techniques used in professional web development. The instructor addresses each topic in more depth than in the introductory JavaScript course, guiding students through practice exercises. The course then introduces some commonly used JavaScript libraries and features from newer JavaScript releases. The Bootcamp also includes several portfolio-quality projects to give students practical experience and concrete demonstrations of their new coding skills. Finally, the instructor will discuss career planning and interview preparation, both in class and during a 1-on-1 mentoring session with each student. This course includes written workbooks and gives students access to video recordings after each class. The bootcamp awards a certificate upon completion, and students may repeat the class once for free, for up to a year.

Noble Desktop’s longest course centered on JavaScript is their JavaScript Development Certificate program, a professional training course requiring several months of study. This program prepares students for careers related to JavaScript programming, primarily focusing on web development. Its prerequisites request that students have some previous experience in web design or web development, at least including HTML and CSS coding. The course begins with the same curriculum as the JavaScript Programming Bootcamp, establishing students’ fluency with JavaScript programming. The next unit expands on JavaScript’s uses in web development, explaining the Node.js and Express.js libraries, programming for login features and other web interfaces, and integration of JavaScript with MongoDB, a database management system used in websites. The third course unit teaches students to use the React library to create reusable blocks of code called components; these classes are equivalent to Noble Desktop’s React Development Bootcamp. The certificate program also adds a bonus unit on SQL, a data management language used in web development. Finally, this program includes lessons on the web development industry, career guidance including practice interview questions and coaching, and several portfolio-quality class projects. Students can also schedule eight 1-on-1 mentoring sessions to further discuss career planning or address difficult topics. This program includes supplemental workbooks and access to class recordings. Completing this program awards students a State-licenced certificate, and students may retake the course once for free for up to a year.