Wears the Classic spell Blink.

Coming from Python: Functions, collections, and control flow arrive with you almost unchanged. New school: strict equality, values that change type silently, and asynchronous code (promises, then async/await).

Summoning the language

Rank 1

First summoning

Press F12 in any browser, open the Console tab, and type: you are now writing JavaScript with zero installs. Or install Node and put the incantation in a file named hello.js, run it with node. const does not come back; let does; arrows make small functions in one line.

const name = "Chromie";
const shout = (s) => s.toUpperCase() + "!";
console.log(`${shout(name)} ready`);

Rank 2

The temper

Three habits keep you safe: compare with === always, check what a value actually is before using it, and treat network work as asynchronous. await only works inside async functions; a promise forgotten is a result lost.

const res = await fetch("/api/health");
const data = await res.json();
document.querySelector("#status").textContent = data.ok ? "alive" : "dead";

Rank 3

First real chore

Build a to-do page in one HTML file: an input, a button, a list, and the browser's own storage so the list survives a reload. That single exercise touches the document, events, JSON, and state, which is most of frontend work in miniature.

localStorage.setItem("todos", JSON.stringify(todos));
// on load:
const todos = JSON.parse(localStorage.getItem("todos") || "[]");