Ask HN: How/Where should I (a designer) learn advanced front-end development?

6 pointsseekingcharlie7y ago3 comments

I'm a UI/UX designer and product manager. I'm very experienced with HTML and CSS and good enough at SQL for what I've needed as a PM. I've worked in several engineering teams and am often opening PRs to refactor CSS or for easier tickets, like text changes, or responsive improvements. I've also built a bunch of custom Wordpress sites as a freelancer but I hardly know PHP in isolation.

I want to take my skills a step further and be able to contribute to building something. I'd eventually love to build a side-project of my own.

Considering my experience, would React be a good place for me to start? I don't know JS apart from using basic Jquery libraries on websites. What about Rails? Should I do a bootcamp?

FWIW, my current company's stack is Laravel and Mithril but we may be moving to React soon. Should I learn those first?

3 comments

3 comments · 3 top-level

saluki7y ago

If you just want to be able to build something I would get started with your own building your own project.

Since you already know html and css you have a head start on people starting from scratch.

Don't just focus on just the front end, learn full stack development, even if you specialize in only front end in the future it's good to have a base of what is going on across the entire app.

I would recommend Rails or Laravel.

I think Laravel has the more active community currently and it's also what your company is currently using so I would use that.

Check out Laracasts.com, they have free lessons to get you started.

I would do the getting started with Laravel series.

Pick out a project of your own that you would like to create and just start working on it. It could be crud initially, then mix in some javascript and jQuery building on top of Laravel as you get more experience and want it to do more things.

Once you have the basics of that running you can look at Vue or React. Laracasts has some vue tutorials.

Since you mentioned starting your own side project check out StartUpsForTheRestOfUs.com it's a great podcast.

rasikjain7y ago

Here is based on what worked for me when I picked up front-end development.

1) Pick a framework you are interested in. It can be either react, vue or any other framework.

2) Try to do some beginner examples from the official guide and blogs.

3) Go through the basic concepts from official help documentation.

4) Learn Core javascript concepts (ES6, Data types, Classes, Error handling, callbacks etc)

5) Basic understanding of eco system which helps to compile, build, test etc (webpack, babel, npm, node, linting etc )

6) Learn Typescript, this will help in a long run. More devs are using Typescript as part of front-end programming.