This article was written by Matthew Hughes.
CS 106A is Stanford University’s introductory programming course. The module – which is also available to view on YouTube – introduces the fundamentals of coding in an accessible way, and lays the foundations for future growth.
Throughout its existence, the course was taught using the Java programing language. Java is popular, certainly, but it’s also extremely clunky and syntactically bloated.
But a new version of the course, CS 106J is based on JavaScript.
According to the University website, “[CS 106J] covers the same material as CS 106A but does so using JavaScript, the most common language for implementing interactive web pages, instead of Java.”
The decision to ditch Java is a laudable one. While there’s a lot to like about it, Java is perhaps the harshest language you can learn as a beginner. In fact, in this respect, it’s straight-up awful.
To read the rest of the article, with illustrations, click here.
