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Ask HN: What is the best JavaScript stack for a beginner to learn?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the best JavaScript stack for a beginner to learn?

#32

Post by nathanallen »

I've enjoyed working with riot.js (https://muut.com/riotjs/). It's a "minimalist" front end framework, written in vanilla javascript. It's easy to pick up, and it's not super opinionated. You can read/absorb the library in one sitting -- so you'll have a good sense of what's going on under the hood.

Another great resource is You Might Not Need jQuery (http://youmightnotneedjquery.com/). Take what you need, leave the bloat behind!

Re: Ask HN: What is the best JavaScript stack for a beginner to learn?

#34

Post by sillysaurus3 »

ricardobeat wrote: post #17

My 2c: stay away from any complex framework until you have a really good understanding of the language itself. Learn the DOM APIs with all it's drawbacks and bugs, DOM events, standalone browser APIs like Canvas, Audio, etc. Write simple node apps with express and modules whose sources you can read. Start using lightweight libraries like underscore / Backbone - you'll come to understand many of the issues that plague…

That sounds like the most boring possible way to learn webdev. Unless they're already a programmer, those things just aren't entertaining for most people. Making sure a beginner stays entertained is probably the most important goal, because people who get bored will give up before realizing their full potential.

So if anyone's reading this and feeling bad that they don't feel like doing that, just dive in and do something fun. The longer you spend learning, the more likely you are to pick up all of those important details anyway.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best JavaScript stack for a beginner to learn?

#35

Post by giaour »

Assuming your friend already knows javascript, Backbone would be a solid choice. You can add it to an existing codebase as a model layer and then if you really truly need a framework you can tack marionette or chaplin on top of it.

If your friend's a total beginner, though, then it's better to just learn vanilla js for now.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best JavaScript stack for a beginner to learn?

#36

Post by gilrain »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #34
ricardobeat wrote: post #17

My 2c: stay away from any complex framework until you have a really good understanding of the language itself. Learn the DOM APIs with all it's drawbacks and bugs, DOM events, standalone browser APIs like Canvas, Audio, etc. Write simple node apps with express and modules whose sources you can read. Start using lightweight libraries like underscore / Backbone - you'll come to understand many of the issues that plague…

That sounds like the most boring possible way to learn webdev. Unless they're already a programmer, those things just aren't entertaining for most people. Making sure a beginner stays entertained is probably the most important goal, because people who get bored will give up before realizing their full potential. So if anyone's reading this and feeling bad that they don't feel like doing that, just dive in and do some…

Yep. The grandparent is good advice. This, though, is effective advice.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best JavaScript stack for a beginner to learn?

#37

Post by kristiandupont »

I've written about Meteor a few times, recently not too positively (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8230631), but I still think it's the easiest way to get started with full stack JS development. It gives you a bunch of quick wins which is really good for morale, and from there you can slowly start looking at "raw" node if you want to.

An essential that might be obvious but in case he missed is that learning JS is much easier in the developer console. If you want to experiment with underscore, go to http://underscorejs.org/, hit cmd-i/f12 and type in _.map([1, 2, 3], function (x) { return x * 2; }); or if you want to understand moment, go to http://momentjs.com and type moment().fromNow(); in the console -- the library objects are available there and this makes it really fast to try things out.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best JavaScript stack for a beginner to learn?

#39

Post by iopq »

ricardobeat wrote: post #17

My 2c: stay away from any complex framework until you have a really good understanding of the language itself. Learn the DOM APIs with all it's drawbacks and bugs, DOM events, standalone browser APIs like Canvas, Audio, etc. Write simple node apps with express and modules whose sources you can read. Start using lightweight libraries like underscore / Backbone - you'll come to understand many of the issues that plague…

I've never done that because I always used a framework. Sorry, but learning the DOM is just not something I want to do and I'll never do it even though I'm a professional developer. That's why there are people who write this code for me.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best JavaScript stack for a beginner to learn?

#40

Post by CHsurfer »

nathanallen wrote: post #32

I've enjoyed working with riot.js ( https://muut.com/riotjs/ ). It's a "minimalist" front end framework, written in vanilla javascript. It's easy to pick up, and it's not super opinionated. You can read/absorb the library in one sitting -- so you'll have a good sense of what's going on under the hood. Another great resource is You Might Not Need jQuery ( http://youmightnotneedjquery.com/ ). Take what you need, leave…

I picked riot.js to learn javascript as it seemed to rely most heavily on solid javascript program paradigms rather than abstractions introduced by the framework. So far I'm happy, with this choice.
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