<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">
  <channel>
    <title>Forem: Teye Quashie</title>
    <description>The latest articles on Forem by Teye Quashie (@teye_quashie_cbc305c3197c).</description>
    <link>https://forem.com/teye_quashie_cbc305c3197c</link>
    <image>
      <url>https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F3610617%2F750b36fa-26af-4000-a299-08af01698688.jpg</url>
      <title>Forem: Teye Quashie</title>
      <link>https://forem.com/teye_quashie_cbc305c3197c</link>
    </image>
    <atom:link rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" href="https://forem.com/feed/teye_quashie_cbc305c3197c"/>
    <language>en</language>
    <item>
      <title>Beginning with JavaScript</title>
      <dc:creator>Teye Quashie</dc:creator>
      <pubDate>Thu, 13 Nov 2025 22:41:54 +0000</pubDate>
      <link>https://forem.com/teye_quashie_cbc305c3197c/beginning-with-javascript-1em</link>
      <guid>https://forem.com/teye_quashie_cbc305c3197c/beginning-with-javascript-1em</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;Today was my first real step into the world of JavaScript, and honestly… it felt like opening a door to a whole new universe. I watched a 2hour tutorial, and even though it was long, I actually understood a lot of things. Here’s my simple breakdown of what I learned, in a way even a kid could understand&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;JavaScript: What I Found Out&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;One of the first things I learned is that JavaScript is a very powerful and widely used programming language. It helps websites come alive and become more fun and interactive.&lt;br&gt;
If a website does something when you click or type: that’s JavaScript behind the scenes.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I also learned about IDEs (places where you write your code). The one we used was VS Code, which becomes even cooler when you add some extensions like:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Live Server – lets you see your website update instantly.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;GitHub Theme – just makes VS Code look nicer.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;JavaScript Code Snippets – helps you write code faster.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Prettier – keeps your code neat and tidy.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And yes, I learned that JavaScript files always end with ".js".&lt;br&gt;
So a file like script.js is a JavaScript file.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Linking JavaScript to HTML&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I also learned that JavaScript doesn’t always live inside the HTML file.&lt;br&gt;
You can keep it in a separate .js file and link it like:&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But if you don’t want a separate file, you can just write your JavaScript inside the HTML between:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div class="highlight js-code-highlight"&gt;
&lt;pre class="highlight plaintext"&gt;&lt;code&gt; "&amp;lt;script&amp;gt;
  // your code here
 &amp;lt;/script&amp;gt;"
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;

&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Simple and clean.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div class="highlight js-code-highlight"&gt;
&lt;pre class="highlight plaintext"&gt;&lt;code&gt;      **Variables**
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;

&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;We started with variables, which I like to think of as little boxes where you store information.&lt;br&gt;
You can keep numbers, text, or anything you want inside these boxes.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Let age = 20;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Here, age is the box, and 20 is what we put inside.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div class="highlight js-code-highlight"&gt;
&lt;pre class="highlight plaintext"&gt;&lt;code&gt;    **Datatypes**
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;

&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Then we moved into datatypes, which basically tell JavaScript what kind of thing is inside the variable.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Some types we learned:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;*Number&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;*Boolean (true/false)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;*String (text)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;We also played with relational and equality operators — things like &amp;lt;, &amp;gt;, ==, ===, etc.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div class="highlight js-code-highlight"&gt;
&lt;pre class="highlight plaintext"&gt;&lt;code&gt;     **Strings**
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;

&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Strings were actually fun because they’re just text, and we did a bunch of things with them:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Concatenation — joining strings together.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Append — adding more text at the end.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Changing cases — like making everything UPPERCASE or lowercase.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Slice — cutting out a part of a string.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Split and Join — breaking a string apart and putting it back together again.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div class="highlight js-code-highlight"&gt;
&lt;pre class="highlight plaintext"&gt;&lt;code&gt;   **Type Conversion**
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;

&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This part showed me how to change one datatype to another.&lt;br&gt;
Like turning a number into a string or a string into a number.&lt;br&gt;
It’s like telling JavaScript, “Hey, treat this thing differently now.”&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div class="highlight js-code-highlight"&gt;
&lt;pre class="highlight plaintext"&gt;&lt;code&gt;    **Control Flow**
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;

&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Next up was control flow, which basically means “deciding what the program should do next.”&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;We learned:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;*If &amp;amp; Else&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This lets the program make decisions.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If (age &amp;gt; 18) {&lt;br&gt;
  Console.log(“You’re an adult”);&lt;br&gt;
} else {&lt;br&gt;
  Console.log(“You’re not an adult yet”);&lt;br&gt;
}&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;*Switch&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Another way to handle different options.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div class="highlight js-code-highlight"&gt;
&lt;pre class="highlight plaintext"&gt;&lt;code&gt;        **Loops**
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;

&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Loops were actually cool because they tell the computer to repeat something without us writing it many times.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;We learned:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For loop&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;While loop&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Do…while loop&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;A simple loop example:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For (let i = 1; i &amp;lt;= 5; i++) {&lt;br&gt;
  Console.log(i);&lt;br&gt;
}&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This prints 1 to 5 without me typing five separate console.log lines.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div class="highlight js-code-highlight"&gt;
&lt;pre class="highlight plaintext"&gt;&lt;code&gt;    **Final Thoughts**
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;

&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Overall, today’s session taught me that JavaScript is not as scary as it looks.&lt;br&gt;
It’s actually fun,like teaching a computer how to think step-by-step.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I’m still a beginner, but I’m proud of what I learned.&lt;br&gt;
Can’t wait to see what’s next on this journey.&lt;/p&gt;

</description>
      <category>learning</category>
      <category>beginners</category>
      <category>webdev</category>
      <category>javascript</category>
    </item>
  </channel>
</rss>
