javascript-definitive-guide/notes/chap1_introduction_to_javascript.md

Chapter 1. Introduction to JavaScript

• JavaScript is nothing related to Java.
• JS has grown from pure scripting-language to a robust general-purpose language (like C, C++)

JS & host environment:

• Core JS defines minimal API (numbers, text, etc).
• Input/Output, advanced feature belongs to "host environment" in which JS is embedded. E.g. of host env
  • Web browser: original host env
    • Input to JS: mouse click, keyboard
    • Output from JS: display HTML & CSS
  • Node: JS can access entire OS, so JS can read/write files as well.

1.1 Exploring JavaScript

To test JS interactly, methods available:

1. JS interpretor in web browser as web developer tools (F12), select Console
2. Download & Install node.js and type node to activate interactive JS session.
   1. I prefer to use VSCode Remote Development Container Images for Node.js, which can be set directly using .devcontainer.json file

1.2 Hello World

Run JS codes, 2 methods:

1. Copy/Paste codes to JS console
2. (Docker preference) Save codes to a file .js, run file of JavaScript code with Node node snippet.js

1.3 A Tour of JS

Quick introduction to JS using code e.g.

Basic syntax

• Comments
• Variable declaration
• Assigning value
• Data types

// Anything following double slashes is an English-language comment.
// Read the comments carefully: they explain the JavaScript code.

// A variable is a symbolic name for a value.
// Variables are declared with the let keyword:
let x;                     // Declare a variable named x.

// Values can be assigned to variables with an = sign
x = 0;                     // Now the variable x has the value 0
x                          // => 0: A variable evaluates to its value.

// JavaScript supports several types of values
x = 1;                     // Numbers.
x = 0.01;                  // Numbers can be integers or reals.
x = "hello world";         // Strings of text in quotation marks.
x = 'JavaScript';          // Single quote marks also delimit strings.
x = true;                  // A Boolean value.
x = false;                 // The other Boolean value.
x = null;                  // Null is a special value that means "no value."
x = undefined;             // Undefined is another special value like null.

• Objects
• Arrays

// JavaScript's most important datatype is the object.
// An object is a collection of name/value pairs, or a string to value map.
let book = {               // Objects are enclosed in curly braces.
    topic: "JavaScript",   // The property "topic" has value "JavaScript."
    edition: 7             // The property "edition" has value 7
};                         // The curly brace marks the end of the object.

// Access the properties of an object with . or []:
book.topic                 // => "JavaScript"
book["edition"]            // => 7: another way to access property values.
book.author = "Flanagan";  // Create new properties by assignment.
book.contents = {};        // {} is an empty object with no properties.

// Conditionally access properties with ?. (ES2020):
book.contents?.ch01?.sect1 // => undefined: book.contents has no ch01 property.

// JavaScript also supports arrays (numerically indexed lists) of values:
let primes = [2, 3, 5, 7]; // An array of 4 values, delimited with [ and ].
primes[0]                  // => 2: the first element (index 0) of the array.
primes.length              // => 4: how many elements in the array.
primes[primes.length-1]    // => 7: the last element of the array.
primes[4] = 9;             // Add a new element by assignment.
primes[4] = 11;            // Or alter an existing element by assignment.
let empty = [];            // [] is an empty array with no elements.
empty.length               // => 0

// Arrays and objects can hold other arrays and objects:
let points = [             // An array with 2 elements.
    {x: 0, y: 0},          // Each element is an object.
    {x: 1, y: 1}
];
let data = {                 // An object with 2 properties
    trial1: [[1,2], [3,4]],  // The value of each property is an array.
    trial2: [[2,3], [4,5]]   // The elements of the arrays are arrays.
};

Comment Syntax in code e.g.

• => shows value produced by code
• // ! code on the line throws an exception

Expression vs. Statement

• Expression used by JS to evaluate and produce a value, but don't do anything
• Statement don't have a value but alter the state of program. e.g. variable declaration & assignment statement

1.4 Example: Charater Frequency Histograms

/**
 * This Node program reads text from standard input, computes the frequency
 * of each letter in that text, and displays a histogram of the most
 * frequently used characters. It requires Node 12 or higher to run.
 *
 * In a Unix-type environment you can invoke the program like this:
 *    node charfreq.js < corpus.txt
 */

// This class extends Map so that the get() method returns the specified
// value instead of null when the key is not in the map
class DefaultMap extends Map {
    constructor(defaultValue) {
        super();                          // Invoke superclass constructor
        this.defaultValue = defaultValue; // Remember the default value
    }

    get(key) {
        if (this.has(key)) {              // If the key is already in the map
            return super.get(key);        // return its value from superclass.
        }
        else {
            return this.defaultValue;     // Otherwise return the default value
        }
    }
}

// This class computes and displays letter frequency histograms
class Histogram {
    constructor() {
        this.letterCounts = new DefaultMap(0);  // Map from letters to counts
        this.totalLetters = 0;                  // How many letters in all
    }

    // This function updates the histogram with the letters of text.
    add(text) {
        // Remove whitespace from the text, and convert to upper case
        text = text.replace(/\s/g, "").toUpperCase();

        // Now loop through the characters of the text
        for(let character of text) {
            let count = this.letterCounts.get(character); // Get old count
            this.letterCounts.set(character, count+1);    // Increment it
            this.totalLetters++;
        }
    }

    // Convert the histogram to a string that displays an ASCII graphic
    toString() {
        // Convert the Map to an array of [key,value] arrays
        let entries = [...this.letterCounts];

        // Sort the array by count, then alphabetically
        entries.sort((a,b) => {              // A function to define sort order.
            if (a[1] === b[1]) {             // If the counts are the same
                return a[0] < b[0] ? -1 : 1; // sort alphabetically.
            } else {                         // If the counts differ
                return b[1] - a[1];          // sort by largest count.
            }
        });

        // Convert the counts to percentages
        for(let entry of entries) {
            entry[1] = entry[1] / this.totalLetters*100;
        }

        // Drop any entries less than 1%
        entries = entries.filter(entry => entry[1] >= 1);

        // Now convert each entry to a line of text
        let lines = entries.map(
            ([l,n]) => `${l}: ${"#".repeat(Math.round(n))} ${n.toFixed(2)}%`
        );
        // And return the concatenated lines, separated by newline characters.
        return lines.join("\n");
    }
}

// This async (Promise-returning) function creates a Histogram object,
// asynchronously reads chunks of text from standard input, and adds those chunks to
// the histogram. When it reaches the end of the stream, it returns this histogram
async function histogramFromStdin() {
    process.stdin.setEncoding("utf-8"); // Read Unicode strings, not bytes
    let histogram = new Histogram();
    for await (let chunk of process.stdin) {
        histogram.add(chunk);
    }
    return histogram;
}

// This one final line of code is the main body of the program.
// It makes a Histogram object from standard input, then prints the histogram.
histogramFromStdin().then(histogram => { console.log(histogram.toString()); });

Running this program using command in Docker node charfreq.js < charfreq.js