/Eloquent-JS-Notes

Direct quotes and personal notes from Eloquent JavaScript.

Eloquent JavaScript Notes/Quotes

Introduction

Programming is the act of constructing a program—a set of precise instructions telling a computer what to do.

What is JavaScript?

JavaScript was introduced in 1995 as a way to add programs to web pages in the Netscape Navigator browser. It has made modern web applications possible—applications with which you can interact directly without doing a page reload for every action. After its adoption outside of Netscape, a standard document was written to describe the way the JavaScript language should work so that the various pieces of software that claimed to support JavaScript were actually talking about the same language. This is called the ECMAScript standard, after the Ecma International organization that did the standardization. In practice, the terms ECMAScript and JavaScript can be used interchangeably—they are two names for the same language.

Code, and what to do with it

Code is the text that makes up programs.

Values, Types, and Operators Values

To be able to work with large quantities of bits (binary) without getting lost, we must separate them into chunks that represent pieces of information. In a JavaScript environment, those chunks are called values. Though all values are made of bits, they play different roles. Every value has a type that determines its role. Some values are numbers, some values are pieces of text, some values are functions, and so on. To create a value, you must merely invoke its name.

Numbers

Values of the number type are, unsurprisingly, numeric values.

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