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When to Start Learning a Front-End Framework

Carl Anderson on April 01, 2019

If you try to learn React, Vue, or Angular as a beginner, the first piece of advice you get is to go learn JavaScript - anyone without some JavaScr...
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Bradley Collins

I've always wondered this myself, and yea, I don't think I've seen someone actually say how much js is enough.

This was a good read. I just started messing with React and I know a little about most of this js list (to my own surprise!), so maybe I'm not jumping the gun as much as I was thinking.

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Daniel Grimm

I’m working as an iOS developer (Swift, Objc), so I would say I’m not a totally newbie in programming. But some days ago I started to think about that maybe I should learn react native. I have a very basic html/css knowledge, but no JS.
My question is, what do you think, how much pure JS should I learn before dive into react native, I mean of course I know what basic things like functions, loops, lambdas (closures) are, so I don’t want to waste so much time on these, I would like to start using react native as fast as possible.

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Carl Anderson • Edited

Normally, I'd suggest that you do some building with React before going into React Native, but since you already come from the mobile world, it may be easier for you to pick up React Native almost immediately - that way you'll encounter concepts you're familiar with immediately instead of having to learn Web Development just so you can practice.

Since you're already familiar with programming, rush through a JS course to learn the syntax (particularly the stuff introduced in ES6), keep a tab open to look up the parts you forget and then dive straight into React Native. The only thing I would recommend is that you keep your React Native configurations as out-of-the-box as possible while you're learning so you don't go down a weird rabbit hole trying to configure Webpack etc.

Expect to spend a little time bouncing around between the React and React Native docs as you get a grasp of the concepts, though. React can be a weird way of thinking if you're not used to it - I've found the writings of Dave Ceddia to be really helpful with React.

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Daniel Grimm

Thank you for your fast and informative response!

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Brian Barbour

I started learning frameworks when I got annoyed with document.addEventListener() for everything I wanted people to interact with.

It's so much nicer to do an onClick event handler in something like library.

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Ola' John Ajiboye

These are great tips. Interestingly I am writing my blog post ever in this same topic, but more tailored to React.Most of the JavaScript you suggested here are on my list , plus a few more.

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Nadine M. Thêry

You just answered a question I had in my mind lately. Specially after attending the Vue Day at Alicante, Spain last week.

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Carl Anderson

Hey! Glad I could be of help :)

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Juan F Gonzalez

My answer to that title is... when you get into a new project and the client due to licensing reasons asks the team to use 'X' framework hahaha. Gotta get some training in order to catch up.

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Nadine M. Thêry

Thank you for these. I am getting so many inputs regarding Vue and React lately, that I s que confused about when would I have enough base to Start with any of them.