Hello and welcome to this exciting new course, where we explore some of the most powerful front-end development languages used in modern web development. In this course you will learn to harness the power of JavaScript, XML, AJAX, and React to build highly interactive web pages from scratch. We start with an introduction into the document object model, followed by an in-depth guide to the essentials of JavaScript. In the JavaScript section you will learn a number of concepts instrumental towards your journey as a developer. This includes working with variables, arithmetic operators, objects, functions, arrays, events, and loops. You will also learn the importance of JavaScript placement, while working with both internal and external JavaScript code components. Students learn the importance of operator precedence when performing simple and complex arithmetic operations. Furthermore, you will have the opportunity to work with conditional statements to perform comparisons between different operations. Once you have a handle on the foundations, we’ll dive into a number of JavaScript development projects where you will have an opportunity to apply your new skills with practical hands-on exercises. This includes building an automated background color changer, and photo gallery complete with mouse overs and image transitions.
In the second section of the course we will explore XML and AJAX to demonstrate the power of asynchronous page updates. This means building web components that automatically update on a web page, without having to manually refresh. You will have an opportunity to work with both XML and AJAX in conjunction with JavaScript to build modern web app components such as a search suggest feature, and a pre-populated select menu.
Once you have a foundational understanding of JavaScript and AJAX, we will dive into working with React, a powerful JavaScript library used for front-end UI development. The React section starts off with a hands-on project where you’ll learn how to work with functional React components, props, Callback functions, OnClick Events, and the React State hook to build a fully functional calculator. From there we will dive into project number two, where you will build a connect-4 clone. Here we will cover more intermediate concepts including passing props, de-structuring, passing arguments to click events, various styling methods, and handling callbacks. You will also learn about the React key property, React lifecycle events, and conditional rendering. By the end you will have built a complete multi and single player connect-4 game board with built-in AI capabilities.
In the final section of the course we further unleash the power of React by building out a complete e-commerce site with multiple product categories, a product showcase, shopping cart feature, and much more. Here, we introduce a number of integral new concepts including: JSON server, Fetch API, and installing React router. These essential building blocks will be used to render the product categories, style the product list, and configure the product details page. From there we dive into styled components, refactoring the shop layout, and exploring the concept of “context” in React. In the final stages of the project students will configure the shopping cart basket, and the checkout feature. We will also implement a product search feature, followed by in-depth exercises on validating input forms in React.
As you can see this course covers a tremendous bit of ground. Best of all it’s co-authored by Tim Maclachlan – a renowned senior full-stack developer with over 20 years of commercial development experience. As a multi-faceted developer, Tim specializes in algorithmic, analytical and mobile development. To date, he’s written hundreds of applications and worked in a number of industries from commercial aviation and military, to banking and finance. Tim has a genuine passion for teaching others how to become better coders and looks forward to interacting with his students.
With that said, we hope you’re just as excited about this course as we are, if so – hit that enroll button and let’s get started.