Javascript to me, feels like a very user-friendly programming language, akin to python. I personally have only used C and C++ but JS itself seems to be a lot more intuitive. From a software engineering perspective, it makes sense as one of the programming languages that you learn. It also makes sense as to why so many people are learning and applying it in their jobs today. It seems to be very flexible and accommodating without the rigidity of languages like C or Java.
There were some things about JS that were convenient in addition to some notable flaws. Personally, I felt that not being restricted to variable types was very convenient. Similarly, arrays are basically objects, complicating things when you need to identify either case. Another flaw is the ‘+’ operator. This is used to both sum two numbers and concatenate two strings. If you use this operator with a string and an integer, it will convert the integer to a string and output a string. This is something that would be quite inconvenient. In C, you would typecast the variable prior to doing this in order to give the desired result. JS seems to be a very usable language that is continuing to develop but I just think it may be more difficult to use when creating significantly larger projects.
Athletic software engineering as it was introduced in the class seems familiar as I had a teacher previously with a similar pedagogy. You would learn the material outside of class and apply it during class. I find this pedagogy effective; however, I do believe that this causes a need for increased productivity outside of class. If this were a typical physics lecture and this pedagogy were introduced, I don’t believe that I would find similar success with it. The practice WOD’s are useful and help prepare me for the Thursday WOD’s, however, I do find them relatively easy so far due to prior programming experience. Overall, this style of learning is effective, but as I mentioned, it does feel like it creates more of a workload for the student.
In summary, I think that Javascript is a programming language that is worth learning due to its wide usage and flexibility. There are a lot more “plusses” than “minuses” and makes sense as why it is currently one of the leading languages in terms of the number of people learning and using it. Similarly, I think that athletic software engineering is an effective pedagogy for learning Javascript and the content in this course. It is not something that I would recommend for every class, however in a class like ICS 314 where it is very skills and practice based, it can be particularly effective.