When you’re new to something, its often hard to shift through the plethora of resources available for your chosen learning path. Here’s a comprehensive list of the resources I’ve found useful and I think Front End developers — new and seasoned — may also enjoy.
Most of the resources are free. If not, then the subscription is usually about the price of a few cups of coffees per month (if not less).
Coding Paths
Coding paths are great because they often give you the guidance you need to make learn your chosen technology or path a little bit easier and faster. There’s popular ones like Code Academy, but here are some other options that are also available on the internet.
Bento.io — I discovered Bento.io a few years back and found them useful for you junior developers who need guidance and resources. Bento.io is more an aggregate of other resources from other sources, placed into a trackable paths layout to help you keep track of your progress.
FreeCodeCamp — if you haven’t heard of FreeCodeCamp already, you should really check them out. Each certification cost is estimated to be around 300 hours. If you’re super dedicated, you can earn it in a month. Their Front End cert is react and Redux based.
egghead.io — it’s a paid service but for the price of your yearly coffee consumption, a subscription to egghead.io is absolutely worth it. I used to have a subscription with them in the past and will probably pick it up again for my personal depth year.
Angular
Angular is the front end technology I started with back in 2013. The framework has grown up a lot and morphed since then. In comparison, Angular 2+ looks nothing like it’s predecessor — and for the better. Having worked on several projects on it, once you get your head around the ideas, it’s actually quite easy to work with. There’s also a plethora of resources available and has a very strong community around the world.
CodAffection (YouTube) — This guy is fantastic if you want a comprehensive code along that will teach you the basics CRUD using Firestore. He’s great if you’ve already got a slight idea of what you’re doing with Angular and is more advanced than the usual introduction to Angular kind of tutorials.
Angular Templates — This website has 6 very well written posts that covers CRUD, internationalization, MEAN and forms validations. The tutorials here explains why certain things are done in a certain way very well.
Todd Motto — I was a bit of a fan girl towards Todd Motto in the beginning of my Angular career. There is a wealth of knowledge to be gained from his blog. There is also a nice table of contents to give you a quick overview of what you’re going to learn with each post.
Angular In Depth — this one is a Medium publication that publishes a number of well written Angular related stories. There’s a good mix of personal experience stories and coding guides.
Adventures in Angular — if you’ve got time to kill or want to spice up your commute, then Adventures in Angular is a fabulous podcast series to listen to.
React
React is the newest kid on the block — and the most popular it seems in the city I’m living in. This means that despite my commitment to Angular, I’ll need to adapt to demands and finally make my first React app — which I’ll probably end up writing about in the future.
I’ve been told its super simple to pick up but quickly gets complicated if you’re not careful. It should be interesting when I do get to creating my first app what my final judgement of the framework will be. Nevertheless, here are some resources I’ve been recommended/currently looking at.
React Native Radio — if you haven’t given DevChat.tv a visit, you really should. They have fantastic community driven podcast shows that discusses and teaches different tech stacks. React Native Radio is one that is targeted at React developers and features experienced react developers as guests.
The Road to learn React — This is a great field guide if you’re not sure where to begin when it comes to learning React. It’s a leanpub book, which means you can your own price.
React Rapid Course (YouTube) — this is one of the most comprehensive and complete beginner’s courses on YouTube that covers React. The videos are in quick and digestible lengths, which means no sitting around hour long coding tutorials.
Build App with React — Live Coding Series (YouTube)— It’s good to do a code along, especially if you’re new to a particular framework. This lets you see how other people are coding and gives you a comparison to where you are with your skills.
React In Patterns — This is a great book to read. Everything in code is made up of patterns. Expose yourself to common React patterns to speed up your workflow.
30 days of React — If you’re after an easy to understand and digest guide, then give 30 days of React a go. The content is geared towards absolute beginners.
Redux
While I’ve seen React code in the past. Redux is quite a new and foreign territory for it. After a bit of research and poking around, it turns out redux is a state container. People tell me there’s a strong and loving relationship between React and Redux. I’ve yet to discover this. Here are some resources that will get you started on Redux.
The Great Code Adventure — When I start learning a new framework, I usually dive head first into a CRUD application to get a good feeling of how everything fits together. This 8 part series will teach you just that.
Full stack Redux Tutorial — Published in 2015, this tutorial, although long, is still relevant and a great start for complete newbies to the framework. It’s not for the faint-hearted though as there is a lot of reading. However, if you’ve managed to make it to the end, then a great amount of knowledge would have been gained from it.
Reduxstagram — Gives you the core ideas behind Redux, react Router and React.js in approximately 2.5 hours. If you haven’t got much time, then this tutorial is for you.
React Redux Links — The guy behind this github repo took the time to curate a learning roadmap for React and Redux learning path. It’s basically a link to other resources but the way he structured everything can expand even a seasoned React/Redux developer’s skills.
Vue
Vue markets itself as a progressive framework for building interfaces. This means that it can plug right into existing code bases, which makes it a flexible framework to work with. But then again, the same can be said for React and Angular. Nevertheless, here are some interesting tutorials you should check out.
Laracasts — if you’re into structured learning, Laracasts has a great series on Vue. It does cost — but if you can learn it all in a month or two, then the price isn’t too bad.
The Vue Handbook — This free book is worth reading if you’re looking to get into Vue. It has all the basics and much more, structured in a logical and newbie friendly way. The only price is your email address so the guy can automatically email you the pdf.
Build an App with Vue — This tutorial is on scotch.io, which is also a good site for other code related resources. This tutorial focuses on beginner material and a good place to jump start your Vue journey.
Vue + Veux — Getting started — Matt Bradford does a pretty good job on his Vue and Veux tutorial with good concise writing accompanied by code. If you want a quick head start, then you should give this 9 minute guide a go.
Node
Node is used as your JavaScript serverside. This makes creating APIs and backends accessible for front end developers. A webpage by itself doesn’t do much unless its connected to something — or else it’ll just be a static billboard on the internet.
Guru 99 — The link to Guru 99 promises to teach you the basics of Node. This means that you’ll be up and running with the tech in less than a week. There is a syllabus and is structured well in terms of content.
Getting started with Node — Rising Stack has a nice little backlog with concise and digestible tutorials that adds up to one single getting started styled guide. The app goes into Heroku/Docker deployment, which can come in handy for future production ready applications.
Mozilla Express/Node introduction — A lot of people often over look MDN web docs but their guides are often very informative and makes a great bouncing pad for kick starting your node project. It is also one of the more technical online documents available but still easy to understand at the same time.
Code for Geeks — this website is a big depository of front end technology resources. They are pretty heavy on node but also cover express, Angular, Meteor, Sails, MongoDB, RethinkDB, mySql and RaspberryPI.
GIT
Command-Line Fundamentals — Git is one of those things you need to learn if you ever want to be deemed as a proper developer. You can’t escape it. It’s necessary and everywhere. This tutorial is only 30 minutes long and fabulously covers 95% of what you’ll need day-to-day as a developer.
And that’s it for this post. Feel free to suggest your own resources below. I’m also interested to know what your personal views are towards the frameworks above. It’s nice to know what everyone else finds useful and any contributions below can help others in the community looking to become a better developer.
