What are variables?

Idman — Mon, 07 Sep 2020 22:00:30 +0000

It took me a while to understand what variables mean in JavaScript. An analogy that resonated with me was to think of a variable as a storage box. The name assigned to a variable would be the sticky-label on the box; and the value of the variable would be what's actually inside the box. So:

Variable = storage box
Name of the variable: sticky-label on the box
Value = the contents of the box

Once that was clear, I could begin thinking of it in 'technical' terms and understood that variables store values.

Declaring Variables

Variables are declared by using the statements let and const. You might have heard of var being used but it's not so common anymore. In the simplest (maybe a bit too simple, ha) terms possible:

let means that the value of the variable can vary, whereas const means that the value of the variable is fixed and can't be changed.

Why are variables important?

I'm only a couple of weeks into learning JS, but that's long enough to realise that we can't do much in JS without variables! It's just an integral part of this programming language. Also, variables prevent us from writing repetitive code. In the English language we use pronouns (he, she, they, etc...) to avoid repeating ourselves. In the same way, we use variables to avoid repetition in our code.

There are other reasons for why and most importantly how variables are used but that is beyond the scope 😏 of this brief post.

console.log("My First Post")

Idman — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 14:15:04 +0000

Hi, my name is Idman 👋🏾

Welcome to my first post!

I'm reading 'The Software Craftsman' by Sandro Mancuso and he advises that every developer should have some sort of blog to document their learning and progress - so here I am.

This blog is for me to look back on and hopefully see improvement in my understanding of the technologies I'm learning. Also, I've benefited immensely from developers documenting their journeys and sharing tips. Maybe this will be useful to a beginner at some point.

I've been enrolled on a bootcamp for 6 weeks now and, prior to the bootcamp, I had a bit of experience with HTML and CSS so the learning curve wasn't too steep.

Then we started JavaScript 😬

My background is in social science and education, so the last time I solved a logical problem involving numbers was probably during my maths GCSEs, which were nearly a decade ago!

I've spent the past week solving beginner's-level JavaScript katas just to get my brain re-accustomed to conditional logic and reasoning. A tip that has helped a non-maths-inclined individual like myself is to: break down the problem in digestible bits and think of how you'd solve it in real-life.

I'm hoping that the JavaScript content I've learnt so far will become less abstract once I apply it to the projects I'm working on.

Forem: Idman

What are variables?

Declaring Variables

Why are variables important?

console.log("My First Post")