Some Final Thoughts about JavaScript

We have only explored the simplest tasks in JavaScript; it is capable of doing so much more. With JavaScript, you can create Dynamic HTML pages, with animations, or contextual help menus, or special menu systems, or complete interactive applications built out of HTML elements. Flash and Director/Shockwave both use JavaScript as their native scripting language, opening the doorway to interactive animated games, and interfaces, and multimedia-rich experiences of every description. On the Web, JavaScript is the glue that ties all of the multimedia elements together, and allows you to make really interesting things out of basic pieces.

I hope that you have found our JavaScript discussion interesting, and that it has whetted your appetite for more programming, or, at the very least, given you a little necessary information.

Remember that programming itself is all about breaking big things down into the smallest, most manageable single tasks; always start with the non-controversial things, single tasks that you understand, and get those down FIRST. Once you've gotten the easy things down, you'll be surprised at how much more readily everything else falls into place! "Divide and Conquer" is the rule of law in programming; if you divide your problem into simple bits, you'll conquer the entire task!

If you really want to learn JavaScript so that you can harness its interactive power, I strongly urge you to start coding projects of every description NOW. Flash, with its streaming sound and animation capabilities, is, by far, the most accessible environment for creating immediate, fun, "flashy" pieces using JavaScript programming that will provide you with a lot of immediate gratification. Dynamic HTML work, however, with its direct connectedness to HTML, is more at the heart of JavaScript's DOM and other built-in features. Whichever way you turn, JavaScript programming will give you a lot of satisfaction, and it pays well, too!

Good luck!

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