Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: Azat Mardan This week on My JavaScript Story, Charles speaks with Azat Mardan. Azat is the author of 14 books on Node JS, JavaScript, and React JS. He also founded Node University, speaks at conferences, and works at Capitol One. Azat first got into programming when he was in college and his major was Informatics in eastern Europe and then when he graduated, he taught himself JavaScript and PHP and did some freelance work. Once he came to the United States, he got his master’s degree in Information Systems Technology and was building websites for country embassies. His main advice to people new to programming and IT is to just focus on one thing and give yourself enough time to get comfortable with that technology, and then move on to a new technology to conquer. In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

• How did you get into programming?
• Major in informatics
• PHP, JavaScript, CSS, and HTML
• Freelancing
• Masters in Information Systems Technology
• C++ class
• FDIC
• Advice to new programmers
• The importance of focus
• His startup experience
• Ruby on Rails
• Mac vs Windows
• Taught himself different frameworks and languages
• Location matters
• MongoDB
• The best way to learn is to teach others
• What was it about JavaScript that really clicked for you?
• JavaScript has expressiveness
• The Talent Code
• What led you to React?
• Which contributions are you most proud of?
• And much, much more!

Links: 

• Node University
• The Talent Code
• Azat’s Blog: WebAppLog.com

Picks Charles

• Gardenscapes
• Starcraft II
• The Osiris Method

Azat

• Echo JS