bounty: the minimum bounty is 50 reputation points. While you can get reputation
from asking quality questions, it’s usually quicker to get reputation by providing qual‐
ity answers.
Answering people’s questions also has the benefit of being a great way to learn. I gen‐
erally feel that I learn more from answering other people’s questions than I do from
having my questions answered. If you want to really thoroughly learn a technology,
learn the basics and then start trying to tackle people’s questions on SO. At first you
might be consistently beat out by people who are already experts, but before long,
you’ll find that you are one of the experts.
Lastly, you shouldn’t hesitate to use your reputation to further your career. A good
reputation is absolutely worth putting on a résumé. It’s worked for me, and now that
I’m in the position of interviewing developers myself, I’m always impressed to see a
good SO reputation (I consider a “good” SO reputation anything over 3,000; five-digit
reputations are great). A good SO reputation tells me that someone is not just compe‐
tent in their field, but they are clear communicators and generally helpful.
Contributing to Open Source Projects
A great way to learn is to contribute to open source projects: not only will you face
challenges that stretch your abilities, but your code will be peer-reviewed by the com‐
munity, which will make you a better programmer. It also looks great on a résumé.
If you’re a beginner, a good place to start is by contributing to documentation. Many
open source projects suffer in the documentation department, and as a beginner,
you’re in an excellent position: you can learn something, then explain it in a way that’s
useful to other beginners.
Sometimes the open source community can be intimidating, but if you’re persistent
and stay open to constructive criticism, you will find that your contributions are wel‐
come. Start by reading Scot Hanselman’s excellent blog post
. In that post, he recommends the website
connect programmers to open source projects. Search for the tag “JavaScript,” and
you’ll find many open source projects looking for help.
Conclusion
Congratulations on starting your journey to becoming a JavaScript developer! Some
of the material in this book is very challenging, and if you took the time to under‐
stand it thoroughly, you will have a strong foundation in this important language. If
there were parts you struggled with, don’t be discouraged! JavaScript is a complex,
powerful language that can’t be learned overnight (or even in a year). If you’re new to
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