JavaScript Tutorial for Beginners – Learn JavaScript step by step

Are you searching for a JavaScript Tutorial with easy to understand examples? You have visited the right place. This is the introductory post of the JavaScript tutorial series. This series will be 50 to 60 posts long covering each and every concept you need to know about JavaScript.

Do you have zero knowledge about coding? Then this JavaScript series will help you from the initial hand-holding. Have you already learned HTML and CSS? Great. This will expand your horizons. Have you already learned other programming languages like Python, Java and C# and you need to learn JavaScript? You’ll surely breeze through this series.

No matter what your goal is JavaScript will surely help you in one way or another. From front-end to back-end, from mobile application development to single page applications, JavaScript is used everywhere.

So what we will cover in this series?

First, we’ll start with JavaScript basics such as the fundamentals of JavaScript then we’ll dive into DOM, Events, Data structure, Arrays, Object-oriented programming, Asynchronous programming, etc. In case you don’t know about markup language and style sheets, we’ll also cover a little bit about HTML and CSS, and this should be enough to create modern web applications.

In case you’re wondering why should learn JavaScript, let’s start with it in the next section. If you already know why JavaScript is important or what you can do with JavaScript, you can skip to What we’ll cover in this series.

Why should you learn JavaScript?

It is a good question. Let’s dive into it. You should learn JavaScript because it was invented for creating user interaction on web pages and it is still the best scripting language for this purpose. Moreover, every web browser in this world supports this language. So you need to learn JavaScript at some point even if you primarily use any other programming language.

In 1995, Mocha (JavaScript) was developed to work with HTML. The intent behind the development was to engage users on traditional web pages. Since then this language has grown a lot.

Modern JavaScript can be used everywhere. After the launch of Node.js (Runtime environment) in 2009, a new world of JavaScript development opened. Node.js allowed JavaScript to run on native server. Later, after the launch of Express.js in 2010, developers started using Node.js to run on their Operating Systems for back-end development.

Now, JavaScript has become the prime choice for full-stack web development and cross-platform application development.

JavaScript has become so popular that new frameworks are being launched every year (for different purposes obviously). The JavaScript ecosystem is so huge that you need to invest a lot of time to learn everything. By the time you feel that you have finished learning JavaScript, a new JavaScript technology will be launched in the market you have to start learning again.

In short, JavaScript is evolving every year. More and more people are adopting this language. Currently, JavaScript is the most popular with a 62.3% usage rate. You can check the Stackoverflow Developer Survey 2024 if you want to see the usage percentage of each programming language.

In short, you should learn JavaScript because it is the backbone of web development. It is especially important for creating interactive websites and web applications. If you want to launch your online product, you need to learn JavaScript as this scripting language is supported by every web browser.

If you want to learn a programming language that can help you with most of the tasks related to development, then JavaScript is your best bet. JavaScript is so versatile that it can be used for front-end development, back-end development, mobile development, API development, etc.

This takes us to the next point. Why we have started creating JavaScript tutorials? To learn JavaScript properly, one platform is not enough. We have created a JavaScript tutorial series hoping to expand it to web development, desktop development, mobile development, etc.

If you have suggestions for us, feel free to contact us and let us know.

Anyway, let’s continue with what we can do with JavaScript.

What can you do with JavaScript Language?

As we have already mentioned, JavaScript is a versatile language. You can do a lot of things with JavaScript, but mostly JavScript is used for front-end development, back-end development, mobile application development, desktop application development, and serverless application development.

Let’s dive into each one by one.

Front-end development

JavaScript was developed for creating interactions on the user’s end. It works seamlessly with HTML and CSS. HTML is used for creating web page structure, CSS is used to style the HTML elements and JavaScript is used to create interaction when a user tries to do something.

After years of development and advancement in JavaScript technologies, JavaScript is now used for many aspects apart from interactions. It is used for manipulating the content of web pages, responding to users depending on the interaction, validating from, communicating with a server in the background, and much more.

Many JavaScript front-end frameworks and libraries have been developed. These frameworks and libraries have essentially made front-end development easier. With JavaScript frameworks and libraries, you’ll get pre-built components, tried and tested reusable code, improved development speed, great development experience, and more than that you’ll get support from a mature JavaScript community.

Some of the most famous JavaScript front-end frameworks and libraries are React, Angular, Vue, Svelte, and Solid.

JavaScript has a huge community for front-end development. For becoming a front-end developer, JavaScript is the best choice.

Back-end development

As we have mentioned JavaScript was created for front-end development. However, after the launch of Node.js in 2009, JavaScript became one of the most sought-after technologies for back-end development. But what exactly is Node.js?

Node.js is an asynchronous event-driven runtime environment for JavaScript. JavaScript cannot work on the back-end by itself, so Node.js was created using the JavaScript V8 Engine to execute JavaScipt code and interact with machines. Since JavaScript cannot run not machine, it evens the playground with other programming languages. Later Node.js became extremely popular. In 2024, over 40% of developers used it according to StackOverflow Developer Survey.

Node.js can handle requests, databases, and dynamic pages but how to use Node.js; it is not a framework but a runtime environment. First, you need to install Node.js on your PC so that JavaScript can work on the local machine, and then you need to install back-end frameworks for JavaScript.

You can learn Frameworks like Express.js, NestJS, and Koa.js to become a back-end developer. If you’re using JavaScript it means you can one programming language to build an entire web application from front-end to back-end.

JavaScript has a huge ecosystem for back-end development. It is used to build Web applications, APIs, Microservices, real-time web apps and more. Choosing JavaScipt for both back-end and front-end development is the primary choice for many enterprises (PayPal, Netflix, Uber, Airbnb, etc).

Mobile application development

JavaScript is one of the most sought-after languages for mobile application development, especially for its cross-platform frameworks. There are many frameworks, but React Native, Ionic and NativeScript are the most popular, especially React Native.

But what are cross-platform frameworks? Cross-platform frameworks are technologies which allow developers to write code for multiple platforms from one development environment. This means you can develop mobile applications for both Android and IOS from a single code base.

With JavaScript, you can also build Progressive mobile applications and hybrid applications. Both Progressive mobile application and hybrid application combines web technologies and native technologies, so JavaScript is essential for building these types of mobile applications.

Desktop application development

JavaScript is becoming more and more popular for desktop application development, thanks to Electron Framework. Electron is very good at what it does. Many notable desktop applications are built with Electron Framework (Discord, Figma, Skype, Slack, VS Code, etc).

But why Electron is so popular?

Electron is a cross-platform framework for desktop application development. If means you can create applications for Windows, Mac and Linux from 1 development environment. But that’s not all, Electron works on Node.js. It means you can use your knowledge of web development (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) to create an application that has cross-platform compatibility. To be specific you can build desktop applications with front-end JavaScript frameworks like React, Vue, etc.

For rapid desktop application development, JavaScript is one of the good choices if not the best.

Serverless application development

In the last few years, serverless application development has become very popular. But what exactly is serverless application development? In serverless applications, developers only work on developing their codebase while the cloud provider manages infrastructure and dynamically provides server resources depending on server usage and other statistics.

Serverless platforms like AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions, Netlify Functions, Vercel Functions, etc, all support Node.js runtime environment and work seamlessly with opinionated frameworks like Next.js, Nuxt.js and Sveltekit. You just have to write serverless functions in JavaScript to work with it. JavaScript is an event-driven programming language and it is very helpful when working with serverless technologies.

JavaScript seamlessly works on both front-end and back-end. As Node.js is deeply integrated with serverless ecosystem, developers are able to develop applications rapidly.

What we’ll cover in this JavaScript tutorial series?

This JavaScript Tutorial Series is designed to start from the basic fundamental concepts of JavaScript to modern web development. We’ll break down each and every concept of JavaScript into separate comprehensive blog posts so that you get a solid foundation for JavaScript Development.

This Aikubus.com blog is reader-supported and everything we publish will be available for free forever.

Anyway, the main point is, we’ll try to create comprehensive posts for each and every concept. We’ll try to include examples as much as possible. The only thing you have to do is practice everything we show you on your computer or laptop. Without practice, you’ll not remember anything.

Anyway, let’s get into what we’ll cover in the JavaScript Tutorial series.

JavaScript Fundamentals

Learning JavaScript fundamentals is important for every beginner. If you’re able to grasp everything properly, you’ll be able to work with frameworks to build websites or web applications. If you don’t build your foundation properly, you’ll face problems later when you start working on complex projects and you have to learn concepts while working on projects.

Anyway, we’ll start with how to declare variables and store various types of data inside variables. Then we’ll dive into various operators to solve mathematical problems, perform comparisons, use logic to solve real-world issues, etc. Then we’ll start with conditions and loops which help with decision-making and repeat actions in a program. We’ll also go into how to use functions which essentially used to organize and reorganize your code and reuse them later on.

JavaScript DOM (Document Object Model)

After finishing the basics, we’ll get to know how JavaScript interacts with HTML structure and contents of a web page with the help of DOM i.e. Document Object Model. This includes how to manipulate HTML structure, change content, and style elements by using different selectors.

You’ll also get to know how to make HTML elements respond when a user interacts (clicks, hovers, form submissions, etc) with a web page. This will help you make your web page interactive. You’ll also learn how to create HTML content dynamically with JavaScript and make your web page responsive.

Asynchronous JavaScript

Then we’ll dive into how to make your code run multiple tasks simultaneously without waiting for each code to finish. This technique is known as Asynchronous programming. This is important for handling code pieces that take time to complete the given tasks. This includes the concept of callbacks, promises and async/await.

The callback is simply a process to call a function when needed. This helps us control how and when a piece of code should work. Using Promises is a modern approach to how a piece of code should work, the only difference is that in this approach we handle the current state of code rather than calling a piece of code when needed. This also includes the async/await which is usually built on top of promises.

Each of these processes helps us control how asynchronous code runs.

Modern JavaScript (ES6+)

Then we’ll get into the features of Modern JavaScript. But have ever noticed, JavaScript developers often talk about modern JavaScript? Modern JavaScript refers to all the features released with the ES6 version and later versions.

Now, you may be thinking, what is ES6?

ECMAScript (ES) is JavaScript’s standardized specification. ES6 or ECMAScript’s 6th version update (2015) was the first major release since the launch of the 1st version in 1997. ES6 changed how JavaScript worked previously. That’s why developers started calling it modern JavaScript.

ES6 and later versions came with new ways of writing JavaScript syntax which made JavaScript code more organised and efficient. There are many updates to talk about so we’re not going into details about ES6 and later updates.

Although we’ll talk about modern JavaScript separately, just be assured that every tutorial we create, we’ll explain how modern JavaScript works and how you can implement it. You don’t have to worry about learning outdated information.

Working with APIs in JavaScript

After finishing modern JavaScript we’ll start with working with APIs. Working with APIs (Application Programming Interface) is important if you want to become a developer. API help us interact with other essential services. APIs allow us to retrieve data, send information and integrate with other applications seamlessly.

We’ll cover how to fetch data, how to handle responses, how to work with retrieved data, how to make API requests and how to handle errors. All these are important for connecting different endpoints of your website and applications.

If you want to connect your back-end with your front-end you need API. If you want to connect a server with an application, you need API. If you want to use 3rd party services you need API. API is a must for creating any kind of application.

Debugging & managing your code

At the end of this series, we’ll get into debugging, error handling, performance optimization, etc.

Debugging is the process of removing bugs from your code. Bugs are essentially bad pieces of code which create unexpected outcomes or errors. At the end, we’ll discuss about how to debug your code and maintain your code.

We’ll get into how to use the browser’s developer console to debug your website or web application. We’ll also use the debugger in your code editor to resolve errors.

Beyond JavaScript tutorial

After finishing this series, we may get into JavaScript frameworks depending on what tutorial you want us to create. There are many frameworks that you can learn after learning JavaScript. Learning JavaScript is just the beginning.

Or instead of starting with JavaScript Frameworks, we may get into Node.js (JavaScript runtime environment). Apart from front-end, no matter what you want to do you need to learn about JavaScript runtime environment and how to use it.

Who is this JavaScript Tutorial Series For?

This JavaScript tutorial series is for any beginner who have little to no programming experience. Since we’re starting from zero, any beginners would be able to grasp JavaScript concepts. We’ll also touch the basic concepts of HTML and CSS so that you’re able to use JavaScript properly.

If you have already learned HTML and CSS, then learning JavaScript is the next step you should take. You’ll be able to get into front-end development once you get to know how to combine your existing knowledge of HTML and CSS with JavaScript.

If you’re coming from other programming languages like Java or C# then it would be better to visit MDN Web Docs. MDN Web Docs is the closest thing to official JavaScript documentation. For beginners, learning from docs may become overwhelming, but for experienced developers, it is the holy grail.

Get Ready to Code!

In the next post, we’ll start with the first topic – Setting up your JavaScript development environment. We’ll also test your development environment with code. Although, installing a code editor is more than enough, but unlike HTML and CSS, you have to set up a few things if you want to make your development experience better.

If you like this post, great. If you feel that something should be added in this post feel free to comment and let us know about your thoughts.

Let’s meet in the next post. Happy coding!