JavaScript can be an extremely overwhelming language at first to learn much less all the technological lingo that goes along with it. When trying to talk about JavaScript with fellow developers or hiring tech managers, I would often trip up on lingo and then look like I had no idea what I was talking about. To improve my tech lingo, I have started my own lingo libraries to help me speak the language better.

General Vocabulary

Syntax – a programming language’s commands, special words and punctuation that you use together to build a program

Syntax error – a “grammatical mistake” like forgetting to close your parenthesis or mistyping a JavaScript command

Statement – is like a sentence for the programming language

Program – a set of statements that run one after the other

Running/Executing the program – when a browser follows the instructions in a program

Variable (var) – a way to store or keep track of information in a program

Camel Case – capitalizing every word following the first word in a variable name (Ex. yourName)

Concatenation – process of combining strings

Object -can be a combination of variables, functions, and data structures. A collection of properties.

Property/Key – a characteristic of an object

Methods – an action the object can perform

Value – information we store in a variable

Types of Values

• String – a series of characters inside quote marks, used for words, sentences etc
• Number – used for making calculations
• Boolean – true or false

Operators- character that represents an action. Example: + (plus sign)

DRY Programming (Don’t Repeat Yourself) – Programming principle where you should never repeat the same code twice

Conditional Statements –  statements that add decision making to your programs Ex. if/else statements

Code Block – a section of code which is grouped together. Blocks consist of one or more declarations and statements

Logical operators – characters that are used to determine the logic between variables or values Ex: &&

Functions – statement where you store a block of code that you can use over and over again

Function expression – similar to a function statement, except the name of the function can be omitted in expressions to create an anonymous function

Anonymous Function – is a function that was declared without any named identifier to refer to it

Return statement – exits a function and sends a value back to the spot in the program where the function was called

Argument – A value that you pass to a function when you call the function

Parameter – a variable in which the function stores information passed to it

Scope – Scope is the context in which a variable can be accessed, such as within a function, or within the global scope

Global Scope –  a variable is accessible anywhere inside a program not just within a specific function

Have a suggestion for my lingo library? Let me know in the comments below.

JavaScript 102: Lingo Library coming soon!