🧠 The Story of JavaScript
A storytelling journey from its birth to modern dominance
Roadmap: how to learn this material
This roadmap shows a recommended learning path from history and motivation to deep internals. Each item links to a category route on the site — click any to open that section and explore its subtopics.
Recommended linear learning path
- History & Evolution — Understand the origins and reasons behind JavaScript's design.
- Engines & Runtime — Learn how JS executes, the event loop, and runtime trade-offs.
- Language Fundamentals — Practical syntax: variables, functions, scope, and types.
- Advanced Concepts — Closures, prototype, async patterns and deeper language mechanics.
- Modern JavaScript — ES6+ features, modules, and tooling used in today's projects.
- Behind the Scenes — Memory, call stack, GC, and engine optimizations.
Use this linear path as a roadmap. Each link opens the category route; from there, pick topic pages to read in the order that fits your project or curiosity.
Quick tips: try code snippets, follow "Related" links for connected concepts, and switch order if a concept references an unfamiliar idea.
All topics and subtopics
Below is a flat list of all categories and the subtopics contained within each. Each entry links to the route for that topic.
01 — History & Evolution
- Birth of JavaScript
- ECMAScript Standards
- Modern JavaScript Era
- JavaScript Timeline
- Why JavaScript Mattered
02 — JavaScript Engines & Runtime
- Event Loop
- JS Engine (V8, SpiderMonkey, JavaScriptCore)
- How JavaScript Runs
- Compiler & Interpreter
- Memory Management
- Browser vs Node Runtime
03 — Language Fundamentals
04 — Advanced Concepts
- Closures
- Hoisting
- The
thisKeyword - Prototype Chain
- Async/Await
- Promises
- Event Loop Deep Dive
- Modules & Imports
- Error Handling
05 — Modern JavaScript
- Arrow Functions
- Destructuring
- Spread & Rest
- Classes
- Iterators & Generators
- ES6 Modules
- Optional Chaining
- Modern Tooling
06 — Behind the Scenes
Topics in this section
History and Evolution of JavaScript
An overview of how JavaScript began, why it was created, and how it evolved into today's ECMAScript-driven ecosystem.
JavaScript Engines & Runtime
Overview of how JavaScript engines work, runtime components, and why this matters for performance and behavior.
Language Fundamentals
Core JavaScript language concepts: variables, scopes, types, functions and execution contexts.
Advanced Concepts
Core advanced JavaScript topics like closures, hoisting, prototype chain and async patterns.
Modern JavaScript
ES6+ features and modern patterns: modules, destructuring, arrow functions, classes and tooling.
Behind the Scenes
Execution internals: call stack, heap, garbage collection, optimization strategies and memory leaks.