Ideally, what do I need to learn?

[Markshall]

This is quite a sensible thread from myself, something you don’t see often around these ends. So take it while you can

Okay so, a little background information first.
I’ve been coding since I was about 11 years old and have loved it ever since I started. I first started web development (very basically), then moved to software, and then moved back into web development and that’s where my main chosen career path is.

Now, over the past few years I’ve drifted away from coding a lot with personal circumstances that some of you may know about, lack of time and just other general hiccups.

My passion for coding hasn’t decreased however. I still love it all the more.

My predicament is that I’m 24 this month and still working in a retail job I got while at university (worth mentioning I dropped out due to unforeseen personal circumstances) that I have no desire for, as ultimately, web development is where I want to be. That said, I’ve been at that job for about 4.5 years now and I think I’ve overstayed my welcome and it’s definitely time to sort myself out in terms of jobs. I want a career, not a job.

With the lack of time I’ve been having, I’ve not had any time to pick up these new skills such as Vue, Angular and any other libraries/frameworks. My question to you all is: what am I better off learning, and in what order?

I consider myself a fast learner when it comes to languages, and I think

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, without blowing my own trumpet.

All the jobs I’m looking at seem to require some basic knowledge in these tools and I have none because of the aforementioned circumstances.

Thanks in advance!
Mark

 

[Jepzter]

Nice to see that you want to take the next step and start a coding career!

I can only speak for my situation here in Sweden, but I hope that it will reflect most other countries. I really think that you should take a deep dive into React, it has more or less become a required web developing skill that you should have, and you won't get disappointed because I think, it's the most fun way of doing web development and feel like you are being good at it. However, most companies require you to handle a state in you application, while Flux was the "first" technique that came for that and worked quite well with React, I would recommend you to hop on the train and learn Redux.
What redux does it that it holds a big javascript object with data that you can pass around to your components, and React will automatically update based on the new state. Redux can be overcomplicated by some tutorials on the network, but I like the tutorial Redux has on its website, its actually good.

So the order to learn would be

1. React
2. Redux

I think you will come quite far with that skill in web development.

 

[MayoMayn]

Nice to see that you want to take the next step and start a coding career!

I can only speak for my situation here in Sweden, but I hope that it will reflect most other countries. I really think that you should take a deep dive into React, it has more or less become a required web developing skill that you should have, and you won't get disappointed because I think, it's the most fun way of doing web development and feel like you are being good at it. However, most companies require you to handle a state in you application, while Flux was the "first" technique that came for that and worked quite well with React, I would recommend you to hop on the train and learn Redux.
What redux does it that it holds a big javascript object with data that you can pass around to your components, and React will automatically update based on the new state. Redux can be overcomplicated by some tutorials on the network, but I like the tutorial Redux has on its website, its actually good.

So the order to learn would be

1. React
2. Redux

I think you will come quite far with that skill in web development.

You should eventually get into TypeScript down the road aswell, as it really lifts up JS development and is a required knowledge at many job openings.

Anyhow Redux is good to learn, but the React ecosystem has expanded so much the past few months that there's better alternatives than Redux.
The good learning curve about Redux is the immutabability in JS and how important it is.
Another thing is unit testing, something I wish I had done from the start off.

And you're good at CSS so that's just a fucking big plus in front end development that I wish I had.

The other thing is that TS is great about that metadata annotation, so the concepts about OOP, DI and what not else is something you won't find in JS unless you go after a framework like Nest or Angular.

But generally speaking React & Redux is hard to learn and master.

 

[griimnak]

I'm gonna get flamed for this, and probably be told i don't know what I'm talking about.

But personally I cringe at all the frontend libraries of today.
I liked web development more when it was all about CSS, JS and HTML, straight up. The frontend libraries seem like such a requirement at this point, I think that's why i started to drift away a bit.

I'm not saying web development sucks now, but it's definitely evolving. (as it should, as should anything)

If you really want a web development career, you're probably gonna have to learn most of the new frontends, it's pretty much meta now.

 

[M8than]

A good thing to do is look into web development jobs around you and see what they are all looking for. Learn that.

 

[Adil]

Vue is a good thing to learn so is React. If you're able to do the basics with any of the 'big 3' (Vue, Angular and React (imo)) you're pretty much guaranteed a junior web dev role anywhere.
I think your ability with vanilla stuff will make you stand out though - you have a pretty extensive portfolio showcasing various designs so that puts you ahead of most other people
Maybe even learn the basics of server-side development using node (will open up the doors to full-stack dev jobs)