So You Are Learning JavaScript, Now You May, Step Into The Fray

JavaScript is a really good start, it is very powerful and friendly.

And, it is the language that you still have to master, if you start with some other language.

I encourage you to start programming Linux commands, that run on the Linux command line.

The primary reason is that they have no UI, so you can just focus on making useful commands.

But, you will soon need to put your programs on the web, and that will require being comfy with basics of Linux.

To get a comfy start, just get a RaspberryPI, it has all the tools you need, and comes with Linux pre-installed.

There is great power in cheap low-powered computers, because they help you see when your programs run slow.

Don’t worry about too many details, that is something you learn along the way.

At first, you should start with a boilerplate, node-cli-boilerplate is a fully functional empty command that you modify.

Boilerplate are often used by pros, because they save time, sometimes an hour or two.

Play around with processing folders, sorting your photos, maybe scrape the web, and use cheerio to process the HTML.

But your next step should be jumping directly into the fray, by programming an HTTP server based web app and deploying it on a shared host.

Oh yes, other programmers just shrieked and cringed, but they also suffered a large data breach, and should go work on that.

You should pick what Web Application you want to build, but I recommend a WikiWiki, they are tiny little programs.

Later on you will need a backend, or administrative area, where people can log in to edit pages.

But for now, you can hard code a password hash in your program. To check a password using a hash, you run a password through the hashing algorithm and compare it it matches the hash.

The password is not really stored in the hash, you should also salt your hash, but that is not important fr now.

The database of your wiki pages, must live only in computer memory.

An in-memory database is a life changing programming pattern, that will show you how bloated other programs are.

Make your database another command, hide it from the internet, but let the WikiWiki have access to it internally over localhost.

And leave saving data for later, but your database uses JavaScript as API.

So it is just an object, that stores an array of objects, you can serialize that to JSON, and save it as a text file.

So now you have a WikiWiki that uses an in-memory database, with an API (or commands) that you are already familiar with.

And what you are actually building, here, is a network probe, that maybe later you can turn into a honey pot.

This is a program that logs information about, about bots trying to hack into it.

The point of it is to learn about Cybersecurity, by interacting with zombie computers trying to infect your app.

I don’t want this to be a very long text, but I want you to see, how you will develop a natural need…

To learn about IP addresses and geolocation for one, to try to see where those zombies are and who they belong to.

And how you will have a need to install some security scanners to review how they work, what they check for, what the common attacks are.

Without jumping into deploying your first web app, you’d have little interest in Cybersecurity and plenty of fear to deploy anything.

But now, you are interacting, you are in the fray, ravenous, ravenous for more knowledge...