Why should I learn JavaScript?

Because JavaScript is a web standard for in-webpage apps per the HTML5 standard.

Java has been a standard forever. It is so good that even other languages like Scala use the Java Virtual Machine.

Java is not the standard for HTML5 because more than half their updates since 2010 have been to fix security holes, not functionality improvements.

JavaScript is not perfect, either. You can disable JavaScript in your browser settings or the network admin can do it for the entire network, because malicious code can be put on a website that affects your system.

That’s the risk of the internet itself – but JavaScript is not as bad as Java.

That’s more a reason not to learn Java than a reason to learn JavaScript.

JavaScript is open source and openly used everywhere – you can create mobile websites or traditional company websites or games for iPhone users using it.

Whereas learning Objective C means I can only program for the iOS.

JavaScript is one of the easiest object oriented programming languages to learn, and object oriented languages are the standard these days. Skip C unless you plan to be a Unix admin, and learn JavaScript.

If I try to learn C, I think I would get an F. It is just too complicated and verbose and some other adjectives that only describe hard programming languages.

JavaScript is actually faster for a lot of server apps like shopping carts and shopping sites than other languages, mostly due to Node.js. Even Walmart switched over to them.

If big companies are building shopping sites with JavaScript, that means you can actually get paid good money to build shopping sites for them.

Do a search for JavaScript jobs, and you’ll see a lot.

I don’t see as many as I thought I would.

Some of them are listed as node.js or jQuery or Angular or just “JS” instead of the full term JavaScript developer.

If there is money in it, a lot of people will do it.

And with the HTML5 standard making JavaScript nearly as mandatory as HTML for web development, practically everyone will be doing it.

I thought Ruby was the hot programming language.

Only because Silicon Valley people were pushing it to slap together platforms like Twitter and others – and Twitter migrated off Ruby years ago.

PHP is useful. What about that?

PHP is what you might use on the server instead of Windows server software, and it is not going to pay as well as JavaScript development for user apps or server side applications.

At least PHP is not hard to learn.

Neither is JavaScript. In fact, you can look at code samples on nearly every website, and you do not have to learn system admin work to install development environments to learn to program in JavaScript, like you do Python or Ruby.

Just manipulate it in a test webpage.

And JavaScript has an immediate payoff by letting you upgrade your personal webpage as well as giving you a local place to practice –

That place would be my webpage.

As long as you know enough HTML to create a site, you have a sandbox to practice JavaScript, too.

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