Pivoting to the Land of JavaScript

After great deliberation and much consternation, I have decided to switch my Treehouse Techdegree from the Front-End Web Design (FEWD) to the Full Stack JavaScript (FSJS). The reason I started with FEWD was that I hadn't touched coding in about 20 years. No joke! Back in the days of the early 2000s, before CSS, and when the internet was like the wild west with HTML only and bad design.

When I decided last year to learn to program with Treehouse, I thought I needed to establish myself in what I was familiar with, which was HTML and now CSS. I have completed the first two projects and set to complete the third project. Don't get me wrong regarding this post because I've enjoyed learning front-end web development. FEWD is a well-structured plan; however, going deep into JS is the best path for me and my professional future.

HTML and CSS are handy programming tools, but JavaScript is almost 100% of what I should be learning! Think of an app like a book. JS is like the pages of the book, where all of the chapters and meaningful content is. The pages in a book are way more important than the book's front cover and back cover. HTML and CSS are like covers. They're essential, but just a small decorative piece of the bigger picture.

A wise man recently told me the following:

In programming, there are things that you should learn superficially - just good enough to get by. To drive a car, you don't need to know how to replace the engine. You'd waste a lot of time learning how to replace the engine when all you need to know to drive a car is how to steer and operate the gas. HTML and CSS qualify as things you should superficially learn. Some things, however, you should know VERY profoundly. JavaScript is something you should learn VERY deeply to get better at programming the fastest. What are the variables? Loops? If/else statements? How does JavaScript work under the hood? What is a module? Keep asking questions and answering them until you don't have any left. Once you have JavaScript down, I would consider learning a little HTML/CSS alongside a React framework.

I've never used JavaScript, but I realized it is more challenging than HTML/CSS. I may want to go back to them because they make more sense. I will try to fight that feeling. JS will be the language that gets me my first job, so it makes sense to go all-in on it. I need to remember to have fun with this journey.