Speaking JavaScript Reflections

javascript_reflections.md

• By far the most interesting thing I read was this: "JavaScript did not have exception handling until ECMAScript 3. That explains why the language so often fails silently and automatically converts the values of arguments and operands: it initially couldn’t throw exceptions." WHAT?? It literally couldn't throw exceptions until ES3? Why on earth would it be designed that way?
• A lot of JavaScript seems like workarounds built on top of workarounds. I don't like that.
• The concept of 'bind' seems flexible/useful but also confusing as it's a totally new concept to 'bind' one function to another. I don't yet see the benefit over just defining another function.
• I skimmed the arguments section. It didn't seem that useful or interesting.
• The reading made the concept of 'hoisting' a lot clearer for me.
• I skimmed 'Use Cases for Window' because: "This section describes use cases for accessing global variables via window. But the general rule is: avoid doing that as much as you can."
• The environments section on managing variables was confusing and hard to follow because it is so abstract.
• In terms of chapter 17, I skimmed a lot of it. The examples were terrible and I didn't get much from it. They also seem to focus on telling you EVERYTHING about every possible way to do something, even though I've taken some JS courses before I think a lot of the info is completely not used (and not the best way to do it). I don't think this is the best reading for us starting out. It's a little TOO in depth when we only have 6 weeks to learn it. I'd rather have a simpler version that focuses on best/common practices. There's no way that I'm going to remember everything (or even a majority of) what I read in chapter 17. I own Eloquent JavaScript which I read about 70% of prior to starting Turing, and I think it's a WAY better introduction than this confusing reading.