Knowing all the basics

When I listen to tech podcasts or read articles on web development, there is a significant portion of the community that preaches the benefits of learning the basics. There are advocates for a “bottom up” approach that starts with HTML, adds CSS, then JavaScript. Have no doubt, it is reassuring to hear industry leaders talking about the exact method that I was taught. My first website was built following instructions from a textbook using just HTML. It was a week later that we added some styling to the page. We spent the rest of that semester learning the nuances of just those two languages. The next semester, and a different class, we learned JavaScript and the next class added PHP, using them all to accomplish the basics that so many websites need.

I didn’t start this entry just to brag about how I’ve learned web development. I’m writing about a realization, and a decision, that have been a result of listening to that talk. A host on one of my podcasts was talking about someone he knew who was hiring for their company. The comment was about the surprising difficulty in finding people who knew vanilla JavaScript. My first thought was to wish they would have mentioned the company’s name, as I would apply in a heartbeat. My second thought dealt more with doubt and imposter’s syndrome. I feel confident in my ability to work in a JavaScript environment, but I fully realize that I’m still very much a junior developer and most companies are looking for mid to senior level developers. Absolutely nothing I can do about whom companies hire, but I can control my preparation.

I’ve decided it’s time to stop trying absolutely everything and to stop going broader and broader. Not to say I’m completely giving up on trying new things, I just feel like it is time to dial that back a little and go deeper into becoming a JavaScript developer. I’m going to be spending my learning time specifically concentrating on JavaScript for now. I’ve already started using a JavaScript front-end framework and I’m already taking the “JavaScript Deep Dive” course on Scrimba. Now I’m going to double down and focus on really understanding JavaScript.

So what does that even mean? That means I have a few projects in mind to practice my JavaScript. I’ll be building a few things over the next few months, some with tutorials and some from my own ideas to see how far I can take them without resorting to tutorials. And the last thing I want to do is go to ChatGPT and say, “Give me code.” This is a learning journey.

Now, again, I’m not giving up my interest in other things. As a matter of fact, as a result of the same “learn the basics” discussions, I’ve made a decision to keep my friends group website, pathsix.games, as a vanilla site that does not use a framework or static site generator. There have been recent times when I’ve told my friends “Just wait until I convert it to a framework, then I’ll show you some really cool stuff,” but I realize that I can do everything I wanted to do in a framework in vanilla. Will it take a little more work? Sure. Will it help in my progression of understanding the basics? Absolutely. Some of it will need to be PHP, but there will also be some additional JavaScript.

I’m actually excited about these decisions. I can’t wait to see how things go and what I can create. This is why I chose this path and I absolutely love creating. And for the future, Python will never be forgotten. Maybe I’ll find that, after I’ve gotten more experience with JavaScript, I want to go back to Python and spend more time there. Time will tell.

Posted on: 2024-08-02 22:06:10.218564