It was the first years of the modern web. People were getting sick of waiting minutes for their connection to transfer the 8 bits of data telling them “Sorry, your password must contain an & or a %. Please try again.” They wanted more instantaneous feedback. Something that felt more like a desktop application.

Then finally on a rainy night in May of 1995, the great champion was born. His father, Brendan Eich, named him JavaScript after his successful grandfather Java.

(Karl Benz,the founder of Mercedes-Benz patent, is considered the father of the first practical motorcar, and JavaScript is the main engine of all browsers. This is what Brendan would look like if we called him the Benz of the web ?)

Mr. Eich, father of the champion

JavaScript: Rise of an empire

When JavaScript came into the world, no one was thinking it would be very popular like it is today. JavaScript was a true time saver because of its browser-side validations. But what happened that caused JavaScript to grow so fast?

Before I learn JavaScript, I used to write programs in the VB6 language. But VB6 wasn’t independent. It needed its own platform to run. One of the main reasons that JavaScript is so popular is that almost all devices have a browser. In short: JavaScript won’t limit you to a platform or type of device. You can run it on basically everything.

JavaScript’s progress and popularity is not a secret, but below you can see how JavaScript compares favorably with some other languages.

There are more contents on the web for JavaScript:

Search engines show the number of found results below their search; here is the search result for Java and JavaScript.

Google result for searching Java and JavaScript

There are more people who are learning it:

Stack Overflow tags and the number of questions that were asked for any tag, it can show us the number of people who are learning the tag which is a technology; Stack Overflow tags are also a good way to check how a technology is growing and its popularity.

JavaScript is the most popular tag of Stack Overflow

The most popular language on GitHub:

According to GitHub, JavaScript is the most popular language of GitHub followed by Java, Ruby and PHP.

JavaScript is already the most popular but it is still growing fast

Stack Overflow runs a survey every year, and this year’s survey result is very interesting and there are good things to learn from it. The picture below from the survey result shows that JavaScript is growing faster than before.

_Source: [Stack Overflow developer survey 2017](http://stackoverflow.com/insights/survey/2017/?utm_source=so-owned&utm_medium=hero&utm_campaign=dev-survey-2017&utmcontent=hero-questions#technology-languages-over-time" rel="noopener nofollow)

JavaScript is still misunderstood

All programming languages have their own rules, syntaxes and concepts, and each of them were made to be perfect in something, and none of them are completely perfect, we should not expect a programming language to be jack of all trades and master of none. That’s the reason many projects should chose different programming languages to bring better performance for each parts of their software.

It’s fair to say that JavaScript does not have some concepts that other programming languages have but it might come back to language design goals. One of the currently recognized problems with JavaScript is a lack of static typings that might cause problems in larger applications. That is why elegant TypeScript was created.

JavaScript was never really engineered to write large applications, it was in fact invented in about 3 weeks, in the mid 90s as a quick response to Java…, For Brendan Eich build it in 3 weeks and for having only 3 weeks, he actually did a fantasticjob, JavaScript was perhaps intended for a 100 or maybe up to a 1,000 lines of code, and now with regularity people are building 100,000 line apps, if not million lines apps. —Anders Hejlsberg, known for TypeScript, Turbo Pascal, Delphi, and lead architect of C# (source: this video, time: 01:20)

Without a doubt, JavaScript owes its progress to browsers and their support of good things such as responsive web design, WebGL, WebRTC and lots of more cool things that made JavaScript more useful. Nowadays, developers are using JavaScript for game development, data visualization, mobile applications, back-end development and other fun things as well.

Motivated to learn JavaScript or being a better JavaScript developer? Let’s get started.

Let’s say you already know some JavaScript or you’re a beginner. Don’t waste time and jump into your preferred IDE and start writing the codes you want.

The fastest way to learn is learn while doing, but there is a problem with this method. There are some tricks you don’t know or you never heard of them but you’re writing your codes without knowing them and it’s hard to learn those rules or tricks without reading them somewhere. You already know you can define a variable by using the var keyword, but maybe you did not know that if you don’t use the var keyword, the variable will be global regardless of its defined place.

You will eventually learn what you need to know but that is doing it the hard way. Indeed, one of the best places you can learn while doing isfreeCodeCamp, You can work through freeCodeCamp’s self-paced coding challenges, build projects, and earn certificates. it’s like diving into code but still knowing what you’re doing and learning tricks and rules in a fast and effective way.

The problem with learning JavaScript

There are many technologies and libraries for JavaScript that make it feel scary for beginners. There are some famous names that maybe you have never used and you hear about them constantly.

Some people think “What’s this Babel thing everyone is talking about. All the famous open-source projects are using it!” Or, “Wait — should I use Browserify orWebpack? Where did Gulp and Grunt came from? Ahhh, another new library or framework introduced last week! I can’t learn them all ?”

Yes, you can’t and you should not learn them all immediately. Those technologies, frameworks and libraries exist to help you work smarter, faster and easier. When you find something interesting that is worthwhile to use on your project or is an answer to one of your needs, then you should go ahead and learn it with a beautiful smile on your face while remembering the English proverb “necessity is the mother of invention.”

“I’d encourage folks to remember we’re all in the same boat and our tools are here to help us. If they’re not doing that, we should get them out of the way.” — Addy Osmani (Link to his story)

Finally, I would like to thank Grammarly because of their perfect tool, which let me write an article in English, even though I'm not a native English speaker. Try it even if you're a native English speaker

You may have never used the words “potatoes”, “programming” and “piracy” in the same sentence. Until about 18 months ago, neither had I. But now you will too!

I’m Aditya, co-founder and CEO of Singapore-based education technology startup Codomo. I’m also one of the creators of Potato Pirates. It’s a tabletop card game that envelops 10 hours worth of programming concepts in 30 minutes. That’s right; without any computers!

Potato Pirates is a game that’s perfect for classrooms, family nights, and even game night with friends over a drink (or ten).

Carbo-loaded fun awaits!

I graduated with a Computer Science degree from Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). The university was set up in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In case you’re wondering, yes — I did have the misfortune to experience the Boston winter firsthand.

I hadn’t done much coding before my first year in university. It was tragic. Lectures were painfully boring and the learning curve was “steeper than a horse’s face”. Many of my friends fizzled out and gave up. I persevered because I saw the beauty of converting my thoughts into lines of instructions.

A sneak peek of the cards

Programming is tough! We know this. It’s been etched into the recesses of our minds. But why though?

Learning to code is like learning a new language — except that this language is built upon cryptic symbols and mathematical jargon! Although there are certain overlaps, it’s not really the same. Check out this Quora answer if you’re interested to read more.

Nonetheless, in every language there are certain nuances which require a thorough level of familiarity to grasp. This is what we call syntax — the arrangement of words to make up well-constructed sentences. It’s no different in programming.

Syntax is also one of the main reasons computational thinking concepts seem abstract and tough to grasp. That’s because most of your effort is spent debugging; trying to find the missing semicolon or parenthesis which is causing your program to crash.

I once spent 6 hours fixing a program that had crashed because I had accidentally uncommented a line. #truestory

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Pulpato Fiction #programming #programmingwoes #programmerslife

A post shared by PotatoPirates Coding Card Game (@potato.pirates) on Aug 29, 2017 at 9:09pm PDT

Like with spoken languages, the nuances and syntax in programming languages are unique to each language. That’s when things get messy-er (as though it wasn’t bad enough). To prove this point I wrote a simple for loop which acts as a counter going from 0 to 10 in three different programming languages:

PYTHONfor i in range(11): print(“The number is %s” %(i))

JAVAfor(int i=0; i<11; i++){ System.out.println(“The number is:”+ i); }

PHPfor ($i = 0; $i <= 10; $i++) {    echo "The number is: $i <br>";}

I could go on, but I think you get it. For non-programmers, it looks terrifying doesn’t it? There’s good news though. The logic governing all these statements is universal.

Wait…Instead of overwhelming people with these alien looking symbols, what if we could just present the underlying, fundamental concept of loops, without all the mumbo jumbo?

Precisely!

Potato Pirates removes all syntax and provides a visual reference to these overarching, fundamental concepts. It’s completely language-agnostic. This means anyone can move to any language of their choice after learning to play Potato Pirates.

Some of the programming concepts covered in Potato Pirates

In fact, on our Kickstarter campaign, we’re offering bridging courses in the form of e-guidebooks for Python, Java and Scratch!

Potato King embraces all programming languages!

For anyone who has ever made the effort to learn something new, you’d know that the first step is always the most challenging.

Programming is a very esoteric experience where one only interacts with a machine. And most of the time the machine doesn’t do what you want it to.

Despite having great communities like freeCodeCamp and Stack Overflow, we still end up without having anyone to turn to, especially when we’re just starting out.

If you think about computer programming, it’s as anti-social as it gets. — Shawn Fanning

With Potato Pirates, we’re trying to make this first step easier by removing computers and introducing social interaction; so that you don’t end up like this guy:

Just another day in the office

10 hours of programming in 30 minutes? C’mon!

It’s quite miraculous how much content we’ve managed to cover with Potato Pirates by staying clear of syntax. In a regular CS101 setting, there’s no way that you’d cover concepts like nested loops and running loops within a conditional (if-else) statement in your first 30 minutes of class.

We’ve actually had to remove a lot of what we incorporated in previous prototypes of the game. We did not want to cram too many concepts at the expense of game mechanics. Fret not, though — EXPANSION PACKS!!

Programmable Piracy

Does it actually work?

This was the big question we asked ourselves while developing the game. We’ve spent almost 18 months perfecting Potato Pirates.

At each stage, the focus was always on:

Testing, testing and more testing

In fact, we wrote a separate Medium article to document our journey and highlight our development strategy. Over the past year, we’ve been invited to schools, government offices, family-day workshops and tech conventions.

Recently, we were even invited to Google and Microsoft’s Singapore office. In each of these engagements, we put the participants through a short assessment, both before and after playing Potato Pirates to assess how much they had learned.

Here are our findings:

An infographic of the effectiveness of Potato Pirates measured with a sample size of about 200

With Potato Pirates we’re not just building a game. We’re trying to create a universal first step for anyone, regardless of age or language, into the world of coding — without the need to invest in computers or other tech gadgets and infrastructural support.

Potato Pirates is already translated to 12 (yes! t-w-e-l-v-e) different languages thanks to our wonderful community of backers!

Potato Pirates available in all these languages

In the grand scheme of things, the proliferation of STEM education is slower than it should be. This is because it poses different challenges to all stakeholders involved — kids, parents, educators, educational institutions and anyone else interested in picking up programming. With Potato Pirates, we’re alleviating these difficulties for all stakeholders.

Besides increasing learners’ interest and confidence in programming, we’re also empowering non tech-savvy parents and educators to get involved in their children’s or students’ learning journey. Potato Pirates will enable the next generation to start their programming journey on the right foot with a memorable activity.

The Potato Pirates Jolly Roger

We raised over S$250,000 on Kickstarter! Not all is lost! Click here to pre-order Potato Pirates!

UPDATE

Potato Pirates bundle

We’ve just started a series of coding super sleuth challenges. Crack the code and stand a chance to win a Potato Pirates bundle! (worth $84)