Develop Yourself
To change careers and land your first job as a Software Engineer, you need more than just great software development skills - you need to develop yourself.
Welcome to the podcast that helps you develop your skills, your habits, your network and more, all in hopes of becoming a thriving Software Engineer.
Develop Yourself
#224 - Should You Still Learn JavaScript in 2025?
Send a text and I may answer it on next episode (I cannot reply from this service 😢)
With the rise of AI and Python’s dominance, is JavaScript still worth learning?
In this episode, I break down why JavaScript remains the best starting language for new developers, how it sets you up for success in web development, and even why it’s still relevant for AI.
Plus, I introduce a new AI developer course for those looking to leverage AI in real-world projects.
Shameless Plugs
🧠 (NEW) Parsity's The Inner Circle Program - a highly customized roadmap to take you from 0 to hired. For career changers who want to pivot into software.
💼 Zubin's LinkedIn (ex-lawyer, former Google, Brian-look-a-like)
👂🏻Easier Said Than Done Podcast
Already a developer? Check out 👉 Not Another Course
Serious about joining Parsity? Schedule a call with me ☎️
Welcome to the Develop Yourself podcast, where we teach you everything you need to land your first job as a software developer by learning to develop yourself, your skills, your network and more. I'm Brian, your host. Should you still learn JavaScript in 2025, in the age of AI? I think so, and I'm really strongly in favor of this, and I'll tell you a few reasons why. And I'm really strongly in favor of this and I'll tell you a few reasons why.
Speaker 1:Now I've noticed this interesting phenomenon among more early career developers people that are learning to code that are now abandoning JavaScript and going into Python. It makes a lot of sense. Python is having a big, big moment right now. It has dethroned JavaScript as the most popular language, I believe, on GitHub for the first time in a really long time. So it's no wonder that people are thinking, hey, while I learn JavaScript, I want to do AI, whatever that means. So they think I'm going to learn Python, learn machine learning or something like that, and get a job as a data scientist, and I don't think that's reality. To be completely honest with you, data scientists typically have PhDs, at least master's degrees. They do about maybe 25% coding and 75% investigation, so these roles are highly conceptual and research oriented, not really the kind of hands-on coding that most of us do in our career. So everybody's moving towards Python at this moment and again, it makes sense. But here's why I think you still must learn JavaScript, even in 2025. And probably it's the best language you could ever start with. In fact, that's one of the reasons why at Parsity, basically everybody starts with JavaScript.
Speaker 1:Even if you want to get into hardware, even if you want to get into mobile development, the entire web runs on JavaScript. It's not going anywhere. The web's not going to run on Python overnight. Javascript can teach you the fundamentals that you'll need. That can transfer over into many other languages and, again, it's super easy to get started with. You don't need any kind of specialized tools or runtime environments on your machine like a Windows Mac. Whatever the cheapest laptop in the world can run JavaScript. You can run it directly in the browser and it sets you up nicely to learn whatever else you want to learn next. Don't just stop at JavaScript. Learn JavaScript and then quickly learn whatever the hell else you want to learn.
Speaker 1:Now Stack Overflow, which is a website that I guess a lot of people don't really use anymore in this age of AI, but at one point it was the most popular site for people to get answers to their coding problems. Every day you'd go to work and you'd come against a problem and somebody said did you check Stack Overflow? And if Stack Overflow happened to be down that day, it'd be a big joke, like I guess no work's getting done today. Ha ha ha, knee slapper right. Done today. Ha ha ha, knee slapper right. So Stack Overflow does a survey every year of around 100,000 developers or so and they ask them everything from what they're learning to technologies. They want to learn the kinds of places they work and the kinds of things they do and what their roles are. And, interestingly, when it comes to most popular technologies, they categorized what people said based on whether they are professionals or learning to code. Now, when it comes to professional developers people that are employed, working in the field the most popular language was JavaScript, followed by SQL, followed by HTML CSS, then followed by Python, finally followed by TypeScript. Now, this kind of tracks.
Speaker 1:With my experience as a professional software developer, everybody basically uses JavaScript. Why? Because you can use it on the front end. You can use it on the back end. You can now use it for things like data science. You can use it for things like DevOps. You can use it basically anywhere you could imagine. Nasa uses Nodejs, paypal, amazon name a company they're using JavaScript. So, no matter how much JavaScript hate is out there and people bashing it, saying it's the stupidest language to use and why would anybody in the world use it? I wrote a really popular post on LinkedIn saying who in the world would use JavaScript and then it lists like a bunch of companies all the big ones that you've heard of, including NASA that use JavaScript not only on the front end but also on the back end. So if it's used for all these mission critical things, then you can bash it all you want, but the reality is it's super duper popular.
Speaker 1:Hey, I really hope you're enjoying this episode Now. As you may know, I've joined forces with an ex-Google engineer, zubin Pratap, who's also an ex-lawyer and learned to code at the age of 37. He and I have very similar stories and we've combined forces to create a highly customized and personalized coaching mentorship program for career changers who are serious about breaking into tech. If you know that the outdated coding bootcamp model won't work for you, you're serious and realize that this transformation will take time. We want to speak with you. You're serious and realize that this transformation will take time. We want to speak with you. Our program is not easy. It's not short, but it's highly effective. If you're a listener of this show, you're likely the kind of person we want to work with. If you're ready to apply, click the link in the show notes and you'll be talking to Zubin or I on the phone about the program.
Speaker 1:Now back to the episode. So we see the professional developers, of course, use JavaScript. They may not love it, but it's highly in demand. In fact, 64% almost 65% of professional developers are using JavaScript, compared to 47% using Python. Now let's look at those who are learning to code. This is so funny when it comes to those learning to code code. 66 of those learning to code are using python, and then html and css, and then javascript, and then java, c++, sql, c, bash and finally typescript. This is wild to me. I think this also is a really good indication or representation of the internet basically converging to run people in the wrong direction. It is steering people in a direction that I don't quite think is great.
Speaker 1:Now Python first of all, let me say wonderful language. You absolutely should learn this. Why learn it when you're learning HTML and CSS? I don't really know. I don't know how those things are related at all. So I get this urge to learn Python and I've met a lot of developers that start with Python. Here's why I think maybe controversially that's not a great choice.
Speaker 1:When you're learning to code or learning anything new, you need a foothold, you need something that you can latch on to that your current mental model, your current mental state, can make sense of. If you're totally new to coding, something like a for loop is like French to you If you don't speak French. If you're French, then it's like Japanese to you. You know fit in whatever language you don't know for that analogy to work right. So when you're learning something really conceptual, like a loop or looking at a function and you're thinking, well, how the hell does this work and why would I want to do this? So people fall in this trap of false mastery where they'll be learning something like Python and they'll be learning the syntax and functions and say, oh, this is cool, I know how to make a function. And then, at the end of this course or learning that they're doing, they realize they can't construct a program. Now listen, syntax is completely offloadable to an AI agent.
Speaker 1:Learning syntax is not what's going to make you a hireable software developer. There's zero money in being really good at the syntax of a programming language. The money is in being able to construct a program that people can actually use. And then you can extrapolate that and think how can I build a system that would make sense and can scale Basically? How can I make a system that can take on a ton of users? If you have a million users on a website, this brings all sorts of interesting problems. If you have 2 billion users on a website, this brings even more interesting problems. So how do you write programs that are safe, secure, scalable? This is where the money is. This is where the fun is. This is where the interesting work is Learning something like Python, especially as a newbie, when you're learning the syntax and maybe how to make trivial games like accounting game or something where you're doing just something that like, who's going to use that?
Speaker 1:So I think that's the big problem that I see with people that are learning Python. Now, if you're learning Python, you're doing something like cleaning up data or types of things where you're taking in an input like a file and doing some sort of transformation on it. That can be incredibly important to learn. That can be really, really useful to do it. The problem is most people aren't learning it that way and that can honestly be a little bit too hard for people to just get started with. So then we look at something like JavaScript.
Speaker 1:Javascript is the language of the web all used to the web. We go on the web, we interact with it on a daily basis, so this makes a lot of sense why you probably want to start there. You can literally go onto any website. You can right click on the screen in Chrome, go down to inspect. It'll open up a console in the browser. You can click on the console tab and begin writing JavaScript. Seriously, if you're near a computer, just try it out. Right, const dog equals three, something completely nonsensical. You can write running JavaScript code directly in the browser.
Speaker 1:Now, in order to not get too conceptual with JavaScript, I can go into variables and syntax and functions and for loops and all this kind of junk. It's not helpful. To know the way I would learn JavaScript right now, in 2025 is the exact way that I learned it in 2013. One don't start with even JavaScript. Go a step back.
Speaker 1:Start with HTML and CSS. These are the building blocks of the web. Everything you see on your screen, whether you go to Airbnb or McDonald'scom or every website in between, uses HTML and CSS to construct the page. It's the building blocks, it's all the stuff you see on the page. Html are the components, like the header, the footer, the different basically Lego blocks we can put together to build all the different components. It's like the building blocks, the bricks of a house, if you will. Css is the styling. It's like the paint. So you can build a website with just HTML and CSS and, believe it or not, there are people that have careers Well, maybe not careers, but there are people that have businesses that essentially just make websites with HTML and CSS, and for a lot of businesses, that's all they need. If you look at your local church, your local barbecue joint, some business down the street that the town knows about, they probably have a website that's generally HTML and CSS and that's it. Some people make a living just knowing that. I wouldn't do that, but people can do it. I've known some people that have done that and have pretty successful little businesses on the side doing freelance web development web in quotes, because they're using a very thin slice of the web technology to build stuff.
Speaker 1:Now here's where you add in JavaScript so you learn some HTML and CSS. You go on a site like Codecademycom and you learn some basic HTML and CSS. This should get you some quick rewards, because you're writing code and you're seeing it on the screen immediately. You get that quick excitement, that rush. That feedback loop is super short, while with something like Python or C, sharp or Java, that feedback loop is not so short. You can learn to write some Python code, run it and then you can say, okay, it ran. How would anybody practically use that? That part is often missing from the mix, right? But with HTML and CSS it's quick. You say, oh, okay, cool, I see what's happening here. A webpage is created. Now we add JavaScript on top of this. Now you need to learn for loops and functions and syntax and all this kind of conceptual, boring stuff. But the problem with just doing that you'll get into the same trap you get into with something like Python or C, sharp or Java. You need to make it work with your HTML and CSS.
Speaker 1:Think about this you go on a web page, there's a form, right, you type in some stuff, you click send. What happens with that form? Think about that. A lot of interesting things are going on behind the scenes with a form, and what is most of the web? A bunch of forms. If you go on Instagram, what are you doing? You're looking at a post. How did that post get created? Somebody basically went to essentially a form where they uploaded a video or a picture, a caption, and then they hit send, it went somewhere and then it came up on your feed. So look that up. How does that happen? There's some sort of backend logic and some frontend logic that makes that transportation, that transfer of information from your web to a server sitting somewhere on a literal server farm that's owned by Jeff Bezos or whatever, and that information is stored and captured in that server for infinity and beyond, or whatever right. And then all your friends and weirdos and trolls on the internet get to see that thing you just posted and then they can like it. So then they interact with what you just put up there, kind of through a form again.
Speaker 1:Now why am I so obsessed with forms? Because most of the web is a form. What do you do on Airbnb? You look up houses and then what do you do to get it? You fill out, essentially another form, a form-like component, where you put in your information, you submit it and then somebody, somewhere, will say yes or no, yay or nay. Are you a weirdo, are you not? Do you have the money, do you not? And then make that transfer all happen magically in a backend, in a server-side environment. Now, you can do all of this with JavaScript, and the reason I suggest you start with forms is exactly the reason I just explained, because most of the web is using some sort of form-like logic.
Speaker 1:So back to the question of what do you do to learn JavaScript effectively. Do you just make a bunch of forms and have events that happen when you click the submit button? Honestly, yeah, you could totally do that. So you have to learn some things along the way in order for you to facilitate that transfer of information. So you'll naturally have to bump up against things like well, hey, what happens when a user clicks on a button? What is that? These are things you can ask ChatGPT. You can look online, and here's the way I always construct my questions. When I'm looking for JavaScript specific information, I type JS plus the name of the thing I'm trying to figure out. So, for example, if I made a quick form with HTML and CSS, I might ask plus how to make a submit button work Really basic question and this will take you down a rabbit hole.
Speaker 1:It'll give you all sorts of ways to do it. With JavaScript, there's not one or two or three ways to do something. There's like 10 ways to do something, and that's basically the same for any programming language. There's at least three ways to crack every issue or problem that you're trying to solve. So you're gonna see a lot of different ways of doing things, and this should lead you down other rabbit holes. This will take a lot of time. So doing something as simple as making a button click work could take you hours.
Speaker 1:And this is kind of the point, because when you look up one thing, you're going to find five of the things that you don't really know. It's your job, if you want to be an actual developer and not just some sort of cookie cutter, copy paster, somebody that actually knows how to construct software, to dig into some of these places. Now, don't go too far down. You ultimately want to make something work and kind of have a general sense of why it works. But again, this is supposed to take time. This is supposed to be a little bit painful, because your brain has a way of remembering things when they are a tad bit painful. So pull on all those strings and follow your curiosity, because it will lead you to a much better place than most people that are going to a coding bootcamp and saying just teach me the basics so I can get a job. It's not going to work anymore in 2025. Knowing the absolute basics, knowing only front end, knowing only web dev, is not enough. I'm sorry, you're going to have to go a little bit further Now.
Speaker 1:Lastly, I know because AI is such an important thing. Overnight, we're all using AI. I've talked about it more on this show than I ever imagined I would. I'm using AI at work. I'm reading books about AI. I'm learning linear algebra. I'm trying to get in the conversation and be able to speak intelligently about large language models, because I see this is the future of our careers. Now, what do you do learning JavaScript? You're feeling like you're missing out on the party. You're not. Let me tell you a quick story about what I'm doing at work and why this really drove it home. For me while learning JavaScript and also TypeScript is super important.
Speaker 1:We had some contractors create some code using Python that did some AI stuff, basically made a glorified chatbot a lot more complex than that, but essentially it was some type of chatbot and the first thing the head of engineering did was ask me to translate that code into TypeScript and I was shocked. I said, well, but we have it in Python already. Should we just keep it there? He's like, well, yeah, but if we keep it in Python, we'll have to have now two code bases and we're a small team. I don't know Python super well, I don't know if you do, but it's way better if we can just put it in our code base.
Speaker 1:Also, because we're using TypeScript, all the APIs like OpenAI, which is the API which is basically the brain, the heart of ChatGPT, where all the logic resides, and things like that. You can look up API if you're interested in it. But basically it's a way to interact with the chat bot. That is ChatGPT. Way to interact with the chat bot. That is chat GPT. Openai is an API, meaning you can have the chat GPT functionality in a web app or a mobile app or something else. That is not chat GPT.
Speaker 1:Anyway, he says we can actually use all that with TypeScript and it will be type safe. Anyway, I was kind of blown away that we were doing this. And then I'm like this is really interesting because I was at a conference, also last year, where Vercel the makers of Nextjs, which is the most popular React framework on the planet right now they had this slide on the screen. It's pretty controversial. It says the AI engineer of the future is a TypeScript engineer. People kind of laughed it off and thought, yeah, whatever, right, yeah, no, freaking way. Turns out they may be correct. Typescript, by the way, is a subset of JavaScript. Basically, if you know JavaScript, you can move into TypeScript, because TypeScript is kind of like the cousin of JavaScript. Typescript compiles down to or boils down to, javascript. So what I'm getting at here is learning JavaScript is not only good to start with, but it will set you up very nicely if you do want to work with AI, Because the future, in my opinion my strong opinion is not building bigger and better models or doing machine learning on massive data sets to create some sort of chat GPT-like clone.
Speaker 1:I think the future is in leveraging and using these models that have already been created and battle-tested, like DeepSeek Anthropic Claude, openai. It's going to be using these models to create really cool products. Now, the way we use them will be where all the money is at. So I don't think there's a ton of money in a company that's basically trying to be a chat GPT clone or a competitor. I believe the money is in a company that can know how to smartly use it with data that they own. It's also the reason why I'm really excited to have this AI developer course.
Speaker 1:It's going to be four weeks for people that already know a bit about code, that want to learn a lot more about how to practically use AI, build a product, launch it, maybe even make it a small business. If that's you and you're interested, then you can look at the show notes in the bottom of the show and apply for it. I think we have a few spots left. I'm going to cap it at 20 people max. I think this will be a ton of fun. I really can't wait to launch this thing. I think this will be one of the most fun things I've done this year.
Speaker 1:Anyway, if that's something you're interested in, check it out in the show notes. Other than that, I hope I've convinced you to not abandon JavaScript in 2025. Keep learning it, learn it the right way and then it will set you up nicely if and when you do want to get into AI. Hope that's helpful. See you. That'll do it for today's episode of the Develop Yourself podcast. If you're serious about switching careers and becoming a software developer and building complex software and want to work directly with me and my team, go to parsityio. And if you want more information, feel free to schedule a chat by just clicking the link in the show notes. See you next week.
