Learning JavaScript

I want to become fluent in JavaScript.

Not that I am fluent in Java yet, mind you. I found out the hard way that knowing how to use Selenium WebDriver with Java and being able to sketch out Java code on a whiteboard are two different things. But I have been getting better.

Why tackle JavaScript before solidifying what a Software Development Engineer in Test working with Java might need to learn?

Web application development is shifting from heavy-weight or "high ceremony" languages like Java, to Node.js style JavaScript frameworks. Automation development is racing to catch up.

• NightWatch.JS was launched by Andrei Rusu from Oslo, Norway. 
• Google's AngularJS project constructed Protractor
• SeleniumHQ released a Node.JS and JavaScript implementation of Selenium WebDriver

Back when I spent my 2014 Christmas break taking Alan Richardson's famous online course on Selenium WebDriver with Java and dreaming about switching from being a manual to an automated tester, the rule of thumb was to pair the automated test framework (what used to be called a "test harness" ten years ago) with the web application.

Playing with Protractor: The complexities of testing JavaScript frameworks, according to Vojtěch Jína

Vojtěch Jína, a Software Engineer at Google, finished his Master's thesis, JavaScript Test Runner, at the Czech Technical University in Prague in 2013. Vojtěch talked about, in his thesis, the difficulty developers had when attempting to write unit tests for their code when using JavaScript.

"The language for web applications is JavaScript, which is a very dynamic language without static typing. There is no compiler that could catch mistakes like misspelling a variable name or calling a non existing method on an object - developers have to actually run the code to catch these issues. Therefore testing is absolutely necessary".

JavaScript Test Runner, by Vojtěch Jína

https://github.com/karma-runner/karma/blob/master/thesis.pdf