JavaScript Fundamentals: Variables, Types, and Equality Explained

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A developer recap originally written in March 2020 outlines core JavaScript concepts inspired by Dan Abramov's introductory course. In JavaScript, variables act as 'wires' that connect named references to values stored in memory, rather than holding values directly. The article covers all primitive types — including numbers, strings, booleans, null, undefined, symbols, and BigInts — as well as non-primitive types like objects and functions. It also explains the distinction between Same Value Equality using Object.is() and Strict Equality using ===, noting edge cases such as NaN === NaN always returning false while Object.is(NaN, NaN) returns true. Loose equality (==) is generally discouraged, though the author notes one practical exception for checking null or undefined simultaneously.

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