Let’s see a few JavaScript courses, which (in theory) ought to teach a complete beginner the language syntax and a basic understanding of JS. Everything required to then dive head first into advanced topics on network communication, hosting, frontend frameworks, and libraries.
Skip to the end to see the final tiers.
Also, though I might be critical at points, all the below are valuable content in their own right.
This video is 6 years old, very popular, and only 1 hour long so given the value it promises, very short. Naturally, the details are lacking accordingly, there’s not much “content” in it.
The intro is solid, the animations are interesting, and all explanations are clear and well-visualized. It does start at the beginner level, such as downloading an IDEA and opening the console in Chrome.
As a result, by the end of it, we only reach the level of variable assignment, or how we need parentheses after the function name to call it. This video is nothing but a teaser, that piques one’s interest in learning more at best. This would be fine in other contexts, but the name of the video is Learn JavaScript in 1 hour, which it does not deliver.
Not terrible at all, but I wouldn’t recommend for learning, for me it’s C tier
I don’t know what’s with this obsession with learning in X hours. Do you get an award if you invest less than 20?
Anyway, this is an older video as well, and even more popular than the 1 hour long one.
First thing first, it starts mind-numbingly boringly, if it weren’t for the channel’s success I don’t see how this be viewed so much.
Its weakest point as a video, is that it’s not one. It’s 130 small courses stringed together with “cutscene” slides announcing the course names. Sometimes after every other sentence, there comes a title slide. It’s much more detailed than the first one, no wonder given its length, but very sluggish and repetitive, like enumerating all the numeric operators one by one felt like an eternity. +, -, *, /, % each has an episode.
It also teaches things I wouldn’t, e.g. for 2 hours they use var, only then mention const/let and use them then on, or there’s a section with heterogeneous arrays, which I wouldn’t emphasize much but hey, preferences are preferences. I don’t use or recommend either one for juniors.
Pros:
has all the basics of JavaScript covered
not that long
easy-to-follow explanations
Cons:
no evident structure or arch of topics
dry, not many illustrations
cut to 130 pieces
no practical part, or challenges, homework
I would recommend learning from this, but only if there’s no better alternative, which there is. It a solid B tier.
This is a video series that’s been out there for over 5 years. It is 9 episodes, way less viewed, but I should say it’s still popular. You don’t have to watch more than 10 seconds to see, this guy’s enthusiasm is 10/10.
Interestingly they don’t go into details but I do appreciate that they enumerate var, const, let in the same context, and emphasize that you should probably use const/let.
Topics are all over the place, sometimes they catch even the presenter by surprise, like when he gets confused about shift and unshift. It’s alright when that happens during work, but when I know I’ll talk about them in a video, I’d check beforehand.
Pros:
enthusiastic
lots of examples
only 2 hours
Cons:
ad hoc topics
about the same info content as in the 1 hour long video
no theoretical concepts, maybe only mention scopes and such
lots of everyday tools are missed, like the spread operator, default parameter
They concentrate too much on getting things done through a handful of practical examples instead of teaching the tools and letting you hack together an app. D tier.
This is a more recent video only a few years old. Right away, in about the third sentence they say: “You can put anything in an array in JavaSCript”. Talk about in medias res, in a 30+ hours course. After 5 minutes I seriously considered stopping the video, the sound quality was terrible, and without context, they started rambling about arrays. To complete beginners? C’mon.
Then they start JavaScript history from Adam and Eve, but I think it’s alright to give some background in a course this long. After 57 minutes have passed we reach arrays again, the same as in the preview, but now within reasonable context, and also sound gets a bit better.
Pros:
practices, challenges, quizzes! That’s how we learn
examples, metaphors, illustrations, not just a console
the structure of the lessons is very carefully designed, logical
everything essential to get started with JavaScript
Cons:
as a YouTube video, it is of poor quality, slow paced and the sound is at best acceptable
there are illustrations, but they are very static
This is a proper JavaScript lecture, not much to add, but as a video, it’s a bit lacking. It’s A tier nevertheless.
This is also a rather recent video, only 1 year old. It’s also undeservingly unwatched. Its structure is very much like the typical courses on Coursera, they both try to pique the viewer’s interest and tell what’s going the be the order of lessons and how this all comes together as a course.
It is a slow burner, which would be fine for a live presentation, stating and repeating everything 4–5 times, but in a replayable video, it’s a bit much. It also goes into unnecessary details like which characters are permitted in a variable name. Nobody cares, the idea will tell you if you mess it up.
Pros:
well structured
practices, shared code snippets, channel to ask questions even
you’ll probably know more about JavaScript than me after learning all this (but you don’t know me, so it might be a low bar 🤷♂)
Cons:
300 videos, ~50 hours long, this needs more than just a bit of dedication to watch
slow pace, repetition
goes into details of every minor (and major) thing
The first videos have 10k views and the lasts have 300, which tells the whole story. If you have the dedication to sit it through, then it’s an A tier course.
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