The 10 Best Resources to Learn JavaScript and TypeScript Development: A Comprehensive Guide
Do you want to learn JavaScript or TypeScript development? You’ve come to the right place. There are many resources to help you along the way — and a lot of them don’t require you to spend a single dime. (Or penny, if you’re in the UK).
Two summers ago, my daughter was bored. As she has strong logic skills, I suggested she start learning to code using free resources on the internet. I pointed her to online courses she could go through… and now she is passionate about coding and is training in Computer Sciences (at a school called “42”).
Learning JavaScript and TypeScript can open up a world of possibilities in web and application development. JavaScript is the backbone of interactive web content. It is essential for any aspiring front-end developer. And TypeScript is a powerful superset of JavaScript, providing useful features such as static typing and better tooling, making development workflows more efficient and less error-prone.
Throughout my learning journey, I've come across various resources that have helped me master these languages.
Here are my recommendations for resources, tools and content to help you along the way. I’ve provided the links for each of these in the description.
First: FreeCodeCamp and CodeAcademy. These are the websites I recommended to my daughter and showed her that programming is fun. Both websites are based on learning by doing, where you are given instructions and can move ahead when the code you’ve written meets the requirements. Both websites have a number of free courses providing the first steps in different languages, including JavaScript and HTML, but also SQL, Python and more. I’ve provided links in the description. If you’re wondering how to start or which language to learn, I really recommend you try them out.
Less interactive is the Microsoft Learn course on TypeScript, called “Build JavaScript applications using TypeScript”. (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/paths/build-javascript-applications-typescript/ It’s free and extensive and a good way to learn TypeScript. It provides helpful links to relevant documentation and resources. All in all, it is a very good starting point to learn TypeScript. The TypeScript Documentation(https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/) also has a nice “TypeScript for JavaScript programmers” section to get started and explains everything nicely.
A tool you might find useful in all this is “Run JS”. It provides a sandbox to play around with JavaScript and TypeScript. It provides you with the output of your code, line by line, and all this for free. There is a paid version, which gives you additional tabs and the ability to install NPM modules. However, the free version gives you everything you need to play around with JavaScript.
Another resource — one that is not quite free but that is relatively cheap — is a website called “Humble Bundle”. They sell games, programs, and, more importantly, books. Quite often, those books are about programming. I’ve bought books on front-end development, Python, and blockchain programming. And there are two nice things about Humble Bundle. The first is that you choose how much you are willing to give for the bundle You can end up buying books for a minute fraction of what you would buy them elsewhere. The second is that most of the money goes to charity. I say “most” because they take a percentage to run the website, and if you click on the link in the description, a small percentage will also go towards helping this channel.
Talking of books, the Eloquent JavaScript free online book at https://eloquentjavascript.net/ is a rich and complete resource to help you learn. And while I’m here, I should mention I’ve written a book to help you go through your first steps with JavaScript. It is nowhere near as complete as the Eloquent JavaScript book, though. I’ve provided a link where you can download it for the amount you like — including for free, obviously! :)
If you know JavaScript and want to learn React, the tutorial on the React.dev website is really good. It walks you through the different concepts, such as what state and props are for, how hooks are used and the common pitfalls to avoid. It’s only gotten better with time.
Once you’ve done the React tutorial, you might want to continue with the Next JS tutorial, which is also very instructive and fun.
And of course if you prefer to learn Angular, the Heroes tutorial is good. And it has the advantage of being in Typescript, so it can also serve as an introduction to Typescript — or at least, that’s how I got to learn TypeScript. I’ll probably take the time to go through it once they update it with Angular Signals.
And of course helping you learn is also the purpose of this channel, so if you’d like to keep learning with me how to think like a developper … I’ll see you in the next video !
