Learning JavaScript has been an interesting process. I feel like it was one of the easier languages to learn, perhaps because I had already learned Java, C, and C++ beforehand. I recognized some familiarity from Java and C, such as the syntax for conditional statements, loops, and bracket notation. JavaScript also reminded me a bit of Python because of the dynamic typing and the ability to spread arrays and destructure objects (which is similar to the way Python unpacks arrays and dictionaries). The most challenging part of learning JavaScript was learning the concepts that are unique to the language, such as Promises and the way objects and classes are implemented. Overall, I feel that JavaScript effectively combines certain convenient features from Python with the familiarity of Java and C, making it a great language for software engineering.
I found the practice WODs and the concept of athletic software engineering to be very useful. Although the practice of coding under time pressure can be stressful, I found it to be a skill very relevant to software engineering interviews. In every interview that I’ve been in, there has always been an algorithmic problem-solving component. This usually involved reading a problem statement, coming up with a solution, and implementing that solution through a language of my choice. I also found that by practicing for WODs, the syntax and overall feel of JavaScript became much more familiar. This saves a lot of time because it eliminates the need to Google search every syntactic detail when writing a basic line of code.