Coding for Writers: Basic Programming

This lesson covers:

• What are data types?
• Common data types
• Strings
• Numbers
• Booleans
• Objects

This is a short exercise to give you a little practice working with strings.

This lecture covers:

• HTML (tags and attributes)
• How to add JavaScript to HTML 
• A little bit about functions and object oriented programming

This exercise will give you a feel for how to use HTML and JavaScript together.

This lecture covers:

• What variables are
• How to name variables 
• Static vs. dynamic data typing 
• Declaring and assigning variables 
• Constants 
• How to document constants

A hands-on exercise to learn how to document constants.

This lesson covers:

• What operators are
• Number operators
• Operation order
• Assignment operator
• String operators
• Boolean operators

For this exercise, you’ll create some HTML and JavaScript that uses some of the operators you’ve learned about. 

This lesson covers:

• What are functions?

• Passing data in and out of functions

• Creating and using functions

• Function parameters
• Return values
• Local and global variables

For this exercise, you’ll create some JavaScript functions and compare local and global variables. 

This lesson covers:

• Why function documentation is important
• Summary 
• Remarks 
• Parameters 
• Return value 
• An example of function documentation

Let’s try your hand at documenting functions. Imagine you are documenting a JavaScript SDK for a social network. This exercise gives you the functions you need to document along with notes from talking to the development team. 

This lesson covers:

• If statement
• Else statement
• Else if  statement
• Nested if statements
• Switch statement

For this exercise, you’ll create some JavaScript functions with conditionals.

This lesson covers:

• Why it's important that your code is easy to understand
• Comments 
• Variable and function names 
• Good formatting

For this exercise, you’ll add comments to your code from the previous exercise.

This lesson covers:

• What are loops?
• while loop 
• for loop

For this exercise, you’ll create some JavaScript functions with for loops. This one uses quite a bit of math. 

This lesson covers:

• How to document Booleans, Units, and Callback functions
• Links
• Fonts 
• See Also section 
• Sample code

For this exercise, you will document some more functions using the best practices I gave in the previous lecture. 

A brief introduction to Object Oriented Programming.

Covers:

• Classes
• Fields
• Properties
• Methods
• Class (static) methods and properties
• Documenting classes

Covers:

• What are programming languages
• Why do we need more than one language?
• Descriptions of C, C++, Objective-C, Swift, Java, JavaScript, C#, Python, and Ruby
• Other languages

Covers:

• What are collections?
• Arrays
• Objects
• Accessing array and object elements
• Looping through arrays and objects

For this exercise, you’ll create some JavaScript functions that use arrays and objects.

Covers:

• Why have enumerations?
• Enumerations in Java
• Enumerations in JavaScript
• Documenting an enumeration

For this exercise, you will document an enumeration in the form of a JavaScript constant object. 

Covers:

• What are libraries?
• Documenting libraries 
• How to use JavaScript modules 
• Library locations

For this exercise, you’ll use a JavaScript module (that is, library) to draw a chart.

Covers:

• Why automated documentation generation
• How JSDoc works 
• What automated documentation code looks like 
• Tools for various languages

For your final coding project, you’ll be building a therapist bot. Don’t be intimidated – it’s easier than it sounds. 

Exercise 15: Create a Therapist Bot

Exercise 16: Make Your Code More Readable

Exercise 17: Document Your Code

Review of all the lessons and where to go from here.

Get a discount on the first course in the API Documentation series.