New Training: Foundations of Programming with JavaScript

Since I joined Bocoup just a few short weeks ago, I’ve been spending a whole lot of time talking to Jory Burson. She’s the training coordinator here, and she’s everything you’d want in a training coordinator at a place like Bocoup. Most of our conversations have been focused on something we can’t help but notice: while lots of people can hack together enough JavaScript to accomplish a task, it can be a real struggle to learn how to write quality JavaScript — the kind of code you’re proud to put your name on.

To that end, we’ve developed an immersive one-day training aimed at people with a solid understanding of HTML and CSS who are ready to add a real understanding of JavaScript to their toolkit. The training is built on the belief that writing quality JavaScript is about more than just learning the various functions and syntax, or memorizing the jQuery API; it’s about learning how to think about the task you’re trying to accomplish with JavaScript. What are all the different steps of the task? How will you tie them together? How do you know that your code is doing what you expect? How do you track down and solve problems when they arise?

In short, how do you transition from the fairly static, presentation-oriented world of HTML and CSS, and learn to think like a developer?

About the training

I’ll be leading the first all-day session of Foundations of Programming with JavaScript on July 20, 2012 at the Bocoup Loft in Boston. We won’t spend a lot of time talking theory — instead, we’ll dive right in by tackling the game of Hangman. To start, we’ll dissect the game from a developer’s perspective, breaking it down into the individual steps and units of functionality that make up a game of Hangman. Next, we’ll work on each of those pieces, first as a group, and then in pairs. Along the way, you’ll:

• learn about functions, arrays, and objects
• explore how to share functionality using prototypal inheritance
• get an introduction to the jQuery library
• learn approaches for writing maintainable code
• interact with tools for debugging and testing your JavaScript

This is going to be a fast-paced day, so we’re expecting participants to have a firm grasp on HTML and CSS, as there won’t be time to get people up to speed. We’re also expecting students to be ready and willing to participate, to hunt down answers to questions, and to be prepared for their brains to hurt a bit at the end of the day 🙂

Is this training right for you?

We don’t assume any knowledge of JavaScript, but because this training will focus heavily on learning via in-class exercises, we do want to make sure that you’re able to follow along and understand basic coding concepts. To that end, you’ll want to make sure that you’re comfortable answering the questions here – or at least making educated guesses! – in order to get the most out of the training. Still have questions? You can get in touch with us on Twitter @bocouptraining.

Interested? Sign up here!