Getting Started to Learn JavaScript in 2020 With Top 5 Free Resources6 min read
If you just started out learning how to code this year, JavaScript is a great option to kick off your process. Because JavaScript is among the most popular and powerful programming languages in the world right now, so I already wrote several articles to give you the reasons why you should learn this flexible language.
But now the problem is, you want to learn JavaScript but there are plenty of resources out there which make you confused about which one to pick up, you wonder which one is right for you to start and doesn’t waste your precious time. In this article, I will address your problem by introducing to you some good resources that help you learn and enhance your JavaScript skills efficiently for free.
Those sites I listed below here is completely voluntary, I don’t receive any compensation when you surfing those sites, I do it just because those are good sites to learn JavaScript, in my opinion. Now let’s get started!
1. freeCodeCamp
In the first of the list, I want to bring you a great resource to learn JavaScript, which is freeCodeCamp. freeCodeCamp is the non-profit community created in 2014 by Quincy Larson helping people learn to code for free through a thousand challenges. With freeCodeCamp, you don’t have to pay any cent to access and indulge in their enormous resources specifically in the web-development and now there are many things more. Learning at freeCodeCamp is fun and practical, the lessons are as interactive challenges, you simply just to sign up with Github, Gmail, etc…to create an account and keep track of the learning process.
There are several sections for you to learn on this website, first if you are completely new to programming, it’s better to start at the beginning and do challenges on the Responsive Web Design section. In case you want to learn JavaScript, right after the Responsive Web Design section is the section that can learn JavaScript with interactive tutorials, you will first learn some basics of JavaScript, then ES6, Regular Expression, Basic Algorithms, Object-oriented Programming in JavaScript, Functional Programming in JavaScript. At the end of the day, you can consolidate your JavaScript skills by doing some final JavaScript projects and get a decent certificate from freeCodeCamp. Every time when you get stuck, there is a huge community always willing to help you out! freeCodeCamp is now even expanding, you can almost learn everything related to web development in their platform, it’s always a nice place to start with!
2. MDN Web Docs
MDN Web Docs is the open community for developers to build and share knowledge and resources about web development. First launched by Mozilla in 2005, with a humbling start, now it’s one of the most popular resources to learn web development on the web today. It now boasts over 13 million page views per month, a strong ecosystem of documentation and data, and a lively community of contributors.
If you want to learn JavaScript in deep, indeed MDN Web Docs is the right option. Unlike freeCodeCamp, MDN Web Docs doesn’t have an interactive environment for you to play around. This platform was designed for serious programmers who want to learn concepts deeply and endurable enough to read a lot of text. This website covers massive JavaScript tutorials from scratch to the advanced concepts with a number of comprehensive articles always up to date. The contents there are pretty well-organized, there are different sections that you can choose to start with based on your current JavaScript level.
3. Codecademy
Codecademy is an online interactive platform that offers free coding classes in 12 different programming languages including Python, Java, JavaScript, Ruby, SQL, C++, Swift, and Sass, as well as markup languages HTML and CSS.
There are a few options to learn on CodeCademy, either you can stay with the free account or you can upgrade your account to PRO to receive some privileges and access exclusive contents. But the free JavaScript course from this platform is awesome, with over 5 million students already enrolled, the concepts they teach is digestible and easy to follow. You will learn programming fundamentals and basic object-oriented concepts using the latest JavaScript syntax. The concepts covered in these lessons lay the foundation for using JavaScript in any environment.
4. JavaScript.info
JavaScript.info is an emerging platform where you can find any JavaScript documents from basic concepts to advanced with simple, but detailed explanations. It’s an open-source project with over 8000 stars on Github and contributed by around 500 developers.
Pretty much the same as MDN Web Docs, but this platform just covers along with JavaScript tutorials hence when visiting this platform you will immerse yourself in a number of JavaScript documents and references, which make you a little overwhelmed! But don’t worry, they also organize and classify the documentation and learning material into suitable sections for you to easily pick up.
5. Javascript30
Build projects is a wonderful way to solidify your JavaScript skills! After a great effort of learning JavaScript, you ponder yourself that you have learned enough JavaScript concepts through docs, tutorials, and references to start out making some branch new JavaScript projects! Then you think it’s the right choice, but again you get stuck because you don’t have an app idea. Luckily, I want to introduce you to a website called JavaScript30, created by Web Bos.
After signing up and committing to the learning process for free, each day you will receive an email from this website about the project you are going to build, and how to build it in consecutive 30 days. Everything you build will completely in vanilla JavaScript without any frameworks.
30 Day Vanilla JS Coding Challenge Build
30 things in 30 days with 30 tutorials
No Frameworks × No Compilers × No Libraries × No Boilerplate
Beginner to Intermediate developers and designers who want to become comfortable with both JavaScript fundamentals and working in the DOM without a library. You should already know some JavaScript to start – This isn’t a JavaScript 101 course. We learn by application – encountering many new situations while talking about the hows, the whys and the whats that we use to solve them.
