Eloquent Javascript - Marijn Haverbeke

Chapter 1: Values, Types, and Operators#

Bits are any kind of two-valued things, usually described as zeros and ones. Inside the computer, they take forms such as a high or low electrical charge, a strong or weak signal, or a shiny or dull spot on the surface of a CD. Any piece of discrete information can be reduced to a sequence of zeros and ones and thus represented in bits.

Modern computers have more than 30 billion bits in its working memory. We separate them into chunks - called values - so that we can represent the bits without getting confused.

JavaScript uses 64 bits. This translates into 2^64 different numbers (18 quintillion). Meaning, we can use 64-bit chunks freely without worrying about memory overflow.

Chaper 2: Program Structure#

An expression is a fragment of code that produces a value. A statement contains multiple expressions to produce a program. A program, therefore, is a list of statements. Statements are only useful when they change the the state of the world or the internal state of the machine in a way that affects subsequent statements.

Chessboard Challenge

The below program outputs a size x size chessboard. The sum of the inner and outer loop indices reflects the current position in the two-dimensional grid. The logic here is that if the modulus (%) of the current position is even we output a space. Otherwise, we output a #.

function createChessboard(size = 8) {
  let board = ''
  for (let i = 0; i < size; i++) {
    board += '|'
    for (let j = 0; j < size; j++) {
      if ((j + i) % 2 === 0) {
        board += ' '
      } else {
        board += '#'
      }
    }
    board += '|'
    board += '\n'
  }
  console.log(board)
}
createChessboard()
/* Output:
|# # # # |
| # # # #|
|# # # # |
| # # # #|
|# # # # |
| # # # #|
|# # # # |
*/