INTRODUCTION
This is a book about instructing computers. Computers are about as common as screwdrivers today, but they are quite a bit more complex, and making them do what you want them to do isn’t always easy.
If the task you have for your computer is a common, well-understood one, such as showing you your email or acting like a calculator, you can open the appropriate application and get to work. But for unique or open-ended tasks, there often is no appropriate application.
That is where programming may come in. Programming is the act of constructing a program—a set of precise instructions telling a computer what to do. Because computers are dumb, pedantic beasts, programming is fundamentally tedious and frustrating.
Fortunately, if you can ...
Get Eloquent JavaScript, 4th Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
