Flesh out Javascript Curriculum

[rachelmyers]

Here's a rough outline that we came up with:

Intro

• Demo of a game to play
• This is not java, but the syntax sucks like it is
• What is the relationship between HTML and javascript?
• Clone a repo with HTML and CSS with some boxes with back of the cards
• Manipulate the HTML and CSS as a review of those topics
  • Change cards colors

Primitive types

• Developer tools: Learn to use the console
• Introduce strings, numbers, booleans, variables, comments
• Use strings, numbers, booleans, variables and comments in our game in someway
  • maxNumberOfCards = 16
  • playerName = "my name"
  • gameOver = false
  • etc
• reload our page

Data Structures

• Introduction to Arrays
• Play with arrays in the console, learn to push, pop, iterate, and randomize?
• Create an array of 8 colors
• Assign each color to two cards
• Introduce Hash: key: value pair concept, actually called an object in javascript
• Terminology sidenote: Hash, Objects and OOP Objects
• Create an object of self's position: pair's position
• Looking things up by key to get the value

Control Flow

• In console, look at various return values and see what's truthy and falsey
• Basic function intro:
  • Introduce conditionals by creating a function: onclick checks what the target is and look it up in our hash, and just return the match number
• Conditionals and Loops (and Switch statements?)
• == or ===
• Optional: Try/Catches - Add as bonus step or at the end

Functions and Scope

• Functions
• Closures
• Callbacks - goto for the modern era
• Functions create scope
• Optional: what is 'this'?

Optional Advanced Topics

• Object Orientation - Inheritance, Prototypal Inheritance is different, yo!
• new operator
• error handling

[eric-brechemier]

I'd suggest adding two sections:

• server-side JavaScript (e.g. node.js, but mention that there are other implementations)
• JavaScript tools: JSLint/JSHint, npm, and e.g. grunt to concatenate and minify scripts for production

[robotarmy]

Who is this curriculum intended for - advanced/intermediate users who
already know javascript?

Or beginners?

On Tue, Sep 17, 2013 at 7:29 AM, Eric Bréchemier
notifications@github.comwrote:

I'd suggest adding two sections:

• server-side JavaScript (e.g. node.js, but mention that there are
  other implementations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CommonJS)
• JavaScript tools: JSLint/JSHint, npm, and e.g. grunt to concatenate
  and minify scripts for production

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/227#issuecomment-24592400
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Modern Yoga vs Traditional Yoga
http://swamij.com/traditional-yoga.htm#swamirama

[rachelmyers]

@eric-brechemier Those are great additions. I'll add node and npm and minification tools to optional advanced topics, and I'll add the linters earlier on, when we start creating functions, or thereabouts.

Are you intending to contribute those sections?

[rachelmyers]

@robotarmy This curriculum is meant to be a bit like the RailsBridge Rails curriculum. If it's your first time, you'll probably spend the whole workshop in the first few sections, as new programmers currently spend their first workshops just in Ruby, without jumping into Rails. If people are more advanced or have attended before, they could go through the early sections quickly and spend more time on advanced topics.

[eric-brechemier]

@rachelmyers I can fill in details or help you clarify if you need my help. I am very familiar with JSLint/JSHint, not so much with node.js and npm.

I generally use Apache Ant for concatenation and minification, but I think this approach now belongs to the past, and JavaScript tools (such as grunt) should now be used to develop JavaScript.

I have found a new resource which looks very good to teach node.js basics, listed on HackerNews today:
http://nodeschool.io/

The source of the LearnYouNode tutorial can be found here on GitHub:
https://github.com/rvagg/learnyounode

Each tutorial is based on the same engine, also available on GitHub:
https://github.com/rvagg/workshopper

The comments I've seen are unanimously enthusiastic:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6400387

[robotarmy]

as far a Javascript goes:

This could be used as a teaching aid.

http://www.jslint.com/
http://www.javascriptlint.com/online_lint.php

This is what i use professionally
http://www.javascriptlint.com/download.htm

As a professional - I don't currently recommend using node.js - I think it
has it's place for javascript developers who are moving to server side -
but it has some advanced 'gotchas' in my experience -

Node.js great for people who are looking to expand on the basics of server
design or learn more about http protocol or event driven programming - it's
easy to think of it as javascript - but it's not really much like web
javascript.

On Tue, Sep 17, 2013 at 2:56 PM, Eric Bréchemier
notifications@github.comwrote:

@rachelmyers https://github.com/rachelmyers I can fill in details or
help you clarify if you need my help. I am very familiar with
JSLint/JSHint, not so much with node.js and npm.

I generally use Apache Ant for concatenation and minification, but I think
this approach now belongs to the past, and JavaScript tools (such as grunt)
should now be used to develop JavaScript.

I have found a new resource which looks very good to teach node.js basics,
listed on HackerNews today:
http://nodeschool.io/

The source of the LearnYouNode tutorial can be found here on GitHub:
https://github.com/rvagg/learnyounode

Each tutorial is based on the same engine, also available on GitHub:
https://github.com/rvagg/workshopper

The comments I've seen are unanimously enthusiastic:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6400387

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/227#issuecomment-24625884
.

---

Modern Yoga vs Traditional Yoga
http://swamij.com/traditional-yoga.htm#swamirama

[zspencer]

Looks like #327 resolves this for now.