JavaScript: The Hard Parts, v2 vs The Complete JavaScript Course 2024: From Zero to Expert!

Goes deep on the JavaScript runtime model — thread of execution, the call stack, closure, the event loop, Promises and prototypes/classes — across roughly 6.5 hours. Reviewers consistently say it explains how JavaScript works "under the hood" rather than just syntax.

Will Sentance (Codesmith founder) is the most-praised element. Learners cite his blackboard diagrams, the "backpack" analogy for closure, and a Socratic, audience-paced delivery. The same intense, repetitive style is the one thing a minority find tiring.

Requires a $39/month Frontend Masters subscription rather than a one-time purchase — strong value if you use the wider catalog, weaker if you only want this one course. The course is included in the standard subscription.

This is a conceptual, exercise-and-whiteboard course, not a project build. There is no portfolio-worthy capstone, which some learners miss. The exercises are effective for drilling mental models but produce no artefact.

The mental models — call stack, closure, the event loop, async behaviour — directly explain bugs developers hit daily. Experienced developers report the course clarified concepts they had used for years without fully understanding.

Praised across HN for "behind the scenes" coverage of execution context, scope chain, hoisting and prototypes, paired with modern ES6+. The 2024 refresh added optional chaining and async patterns, though ES2023+ features land slower than on MDN.

Consistently named alongside Stephen Grider and Andrew Mead as a top Udemy instructor. The recurring caveat is delivery — one HN commenter called him "a great teacher but ridiculously monotonous", a real preference filter rather than a one-off.

Listed at $200 but realistically bought on Udemy sales for ~$15-$20. At sale price, 69 hours of video plus lifetime access make it one of the highest content-per-dollar paid JS resources. No commenter we tracked recommends full price.

Three substantial build-along projects (Pig Game, Bankist, Forkify) are repeatedly singled out. Forkify in particular forces real architectural decisions — MVC, async data, module bundling — rather than toy examples.

Strong on language fundamentals and vanilla DOM work that transfer to any framework. Weaker on production tooling — most learners supplement with a React or framework course afterwards to close the gap to job-ready.