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Front-End Handbook

ksikka 11y ago
A word of caution from a worried developer - Implicit in this laundry-list of technologies is that learning the technologies implies you will be good at frontend dev. This is simply not true and encourages the incorrect philosophy that knowing technologies makes you a good developer. Aspiring frontend devs should just practice building and maintaining stuff, not worry too much about the technology, and that itself would put them on the fast track to becoming better developers. Along the way they will encounter problems and evaluate the pros and cons of various solutions to solve those problems. That's the valuable experience you need to be a successful frontend developer - not simply knowing what gulp or angular is.
- 49531 11y ago
  If you want to be a successful front end developer you need to learn JavaScript. The more JavaScript you know, the more valuable you will be. If you know JavaScript then you can pick up Angular / React / Gulp / Node / Backbone / whatever web tech someone needs. Having experience with a specific technology might help you, but I'd hire a JavaScript expert with no experience in my tech stack more than an someone who has become an expert in a specific framework / library.
  - falcolas 11y ago
    I agree. If you can come to grok CSS, HTML, and Javascript, there's no limit on the abstractions around those three concepts that you can pick up. As an anecdote, I am not a front end developer. I try and shy away from it as much as possible; I don't have the design chops to make my own designs, and I dislike the chains of following someone else's design to the pixel. That said, I was able to pick up an abandoned sass/React/Flux/gulp/bower/lodash/... project built up by an intern and make it work in under a day. Because I knew the basics, I could follow the execution path, consulting documentation where necessary, and figure out why things didn't work. Learn the basics; it makes understanding the abstractions easier.
  - msutherl 11y ago
    I think implicit in "learning JavaScript" is learning patterns. This is not picked up through books (except perhaps one of the patterns books), but through experience, reading good code, and talking with other developers.
pbreit 11y ago
Is this useful? It looks like a ton of links with very modest curation.
- hliyan 11y ago
  Perhaps not for someone of your (or my) level of experience with the subject matter. But when I was a beginner, this was exactly the level of curation I needed (and could not find at the time). If the links provide all the details, there's no need to pad the book with redundant content. I'm familiar with almost everything mentioned here, but I still appreciate what the author has done. I just shared this with my entire team.
teh_klev 11y ago
Perhaps should link to here: https://www.gitbook.com/book/frontendmasters/front-end-handbook/details https://www.gitbook.com/book/frontendmasters/front-end-handb... or here: https://frontendmasters.gitbooks.io/front-end-handbook/content/index.html https://frontendmasters.gitbooks.io/front-end-handbook/conte... Current link points to a list a front end developer job titles which had me wondering what the context was for a minute.
jordache 11y ago
a successful frontend developer is more than just the sum of the tools he/she knows. the individual needs to have an interest (dare I say passion) in art & design. Needs to continuously evolve his design vision, and have enough of interest of the subject to peruse work of his peers to get inspiration.
supergetting 11y ago
Very cool! Does anyone know of anything like this for back-end development?
gozo 11y ago
I'm sorry but that page is a big mess. There's no structure, too much redundant information and confusion of terms.
thomasjonas 11y ago
I was just going through the list of possible interview questions (http://www.frontendhandbook.com/practice/interview-q.html http://www.frontendhandbook.com/practice/interview-q.html)... Am I the only (mediocre) Front-end dev that has problems answering these questions? I always start doubting myself when I don't know the answer to basic questions like "Are there any problems with serving pages as application/xhtml+xml?". All these questions ring a bell somewhere, but I have no idea how to turn that into a good answer at an interview... Whenever I run into problems I just try to fix them... I'd like to think that's more important than this factual knowledge.
- callahad 11y ago
  > "Are there any problems with serving pages as application/xhtml+xml?" That was more relevant when XHTML was still vying to be the future of markup on the web. The issue was that the XHTML content type mandated a strict XML parser that hard failed if your markup wasn't well-formed, whereas HTML is more lenient. With XHTML, it was easy for a single stray closing tag to kill your entire site. This was an especially common concern if you allowed markup in, say, comments.
  - atom-morgan 11y ago
    > That was more relevant when XHTML was still vying to be the future of markup on the web. Unfortunately many interviewers still ask these types of questions even if it's no longer relevant.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
buro9 11y ago
This basically says: Learn all the things! But the best front-end people I ever saw did not learn all the things. They learned a few things, mastered even fewer of those things, but ultimately understood how to make what they had learned work for them to do whatever they needed to do. If anyone is reading the handbook and thinking this is too much, you'll never get through it... you're right, it is and you won't. Just learn HTML really well, CSS fairly well (and pick a tool to help manage the CSS) and learn raw JS and one of the helper systems (JQuery). That's it... get the core skills right, get those mastered, and the rest will come easily and you'll understand when and why to use them.
- aklemm 11y ago
  This is great advice. Especially in a time where people from varied backgrounds are scrambling to learn software development, it is critical to stay focused on what matters to avoid getting bogged down. So, for anyone getting bogged down, just get back to handling your CSS and learning your JavaScript fundamentals along with one framework.
f0rgot 11y ago
How do you save on hacker news?
- icebraining 11y ago
  Upvote it.
jfaucett 11y ago
Who can look at this list and actually want to start getting into frontend development? 30 learn X entries not to mention 30x lists of tools for each area. Front end development seems to have gotten beyond ridiculuously complicated - especially when you consider half these entries will probably be outdated in 6 months time and almost certainly in 2 years time.
domrdy 11y ago
The best frontend developers I know are those that actually stick to frontend development. Imho its one of the most frustrating job in the field yet underappreciated and looked down upon.
gozo 11y ago
Seriously, how is this on the front page and why do I get down voted for pointing out that it is less than excellent? If you want to be a better developer, especially as a front-end developer, you need to learn how to write and value good documentation. Let's take a look at the first paragraph: > Below is a list and description of various front-end job titles Completely redundant, just makes reading and editing it harder. > The common, or most used (i.e. generic), title for a front-end developer is, "front-end developer" or "front-end engineer". Common/most used/generic? There's no need for this clarification and developer versus engineer is already covered by that subsection. > Note that any job that contains the word "front-end", "client-side", "web UI", "HTML", "CSS", or "JavaScript" typically infers that a person has some degree of HTML, CSS, DOM, and JavaScript professional know how. So HTML, CSS and JavaScript means HTML, CSS and JavaScript? Even if you want to keep this line it's an easy rewrite to 'Jobs that contain "front-end", "client-side" or "web UI" imply work experience with HTML, CSS and JavaScript'. I could go on and on, like the use of "when the word" everywhere. Half of every description is fluff that is already obvious by the context. It's not properly written for it's audience. If you don't know what testing is you're not going to be enlightened by a list of tests, you need to describe what someone in testing does and what purpose it has. > When the word "Acessibility" is included in the job title, this will denote that the developer has extensive experience crafting front-end technologies that support accessibility requirements and standards. Again, seriously?
- underwater 11y ago
  Your comment was almost as long as the page you're complaining about. Maybe channel your time into writing something useful instead of just complaining that what others do isn't good enough. Your complaints were all about on the first page. There are a lot more pages, and decent enough content on subsequent pages.
  - gozo 11y ago
    And what does your own condescending remarks add exactly? This was the page that was linked and frankly it wasn't good enough for HN nor did it reflect particularly good on front-end developers. Maybe something you yourself should think about when posting comments with a claimed employer in your profile.

A word of caution from a worried developer - Implicit in this laundry-list of technologies is that learning the technologies implies you will be good at frontend dev. This is simply not true and encourages the incorrect philosophy that knowing technologies makes you a good developer. Aspiring frontend devs should just practice building and maintaining stuff, not worry too much about the technology, and that itself would put them on the fast track to becoming better developers. Along the way they will encounter problems and evaluate the pros and cons of various solutions to solve those problems. That's the valuable experience you need to be a successful frontend developer - not simply knowing what gulp or angular is.

49531 11y ago
If you want to be a successful front end developer you need to learn JavaScript. The more JavaScript you know, the more valuable you will be. If you know JavaScript then you can pick up Angular / React / Gulp / Node / Backbone / whatever web tech someone needs. Having experience with a specific technology might help you, but I'd hire a JavaScript expert with no experience in my tech stack more than an someone who has become an expert in a specific framework / library.
- falcolas 11y ago
  I agree. If you can come to grok CSS, HTML, and Javascript, there's no limit on the abstractions around those three concepts that you can pick up. As an anecdote, I am not a front end developer. I try and shy away from it as much as possible; I don't have the design chops to make my own designs, and I dislike the chains of following someone else's design to the pixel. That said, I was able to pick up an abandoned sass/React/Flux/gulp/bower/lodash/... project built up by an intern and make it work in under a day. Because I knew the basics, I could follow the execution path, consulting documentation where necessary, and figure out why things didn't work. Learn the basics; it makes understanding the abstractions easier.
- msutherl 11y ago
  I think implicit in "learning JavaScript" is learning patterns. This is not picked up through books (except perhaps one of the patterns books), but through experience, reading good code, and talking with other developers.

pbreit 11y ago

Is this useful? It looks like a ton of links with very modest curation.

hliyan 11y ago
Perhaps not for someone of your (or my) level of experience with the subject matter. But when I was a beginner, this was exactly the level of curation I needed (and could not find at the time). If the links provide all the details, there's no need to pad the book with redundant content. I'm familiar with almost everything mentioned here, but I still appreciate what the author has done. I just shared this with my entire team.

teh_klev 11y ago

Perhaps should link to here: https://www.gitbook.com/book/frontendmasters/front-end-handbook/details https://www.gitbook.com/book/frontendmasters/front-end-handb... or here: https://frontendmasters.gitbooks.io/front-end-handbook/content/index.html https://frontendmasters.gitbooks.io/front-end-handbook/conte... Current link points to a list a front end developer job titles which had me wondering what the context was for a minute.

jordache 11y ago

a successful frontend developer is more than just the sum of the tools he/she knows. the individual needs to have an interest (dare I say passion) in art & design. Needs to continuously evolve his design vision, and have enough of interest of the subject to peruse work of his peers to get inspiration.

supergetting 11y ago

Very cool! Does anyone know of anything like this for back-end development?

gozo 11y ago

I'm sorry but that page is a big mess. There's no structure, too much redundant information and confusion of terms.

thomasjonas 11y ago

I was just going through the list of possible interview questions (http://www.frontendhandbook.com/practice/interview-q.html http://www.frontendhandbook.com/practice/interview-q.html)... Am I the only (mediocre) Front-end dev that has problems answering these questions? I always start doubting myself when I don't know the answer to basic questions like "Are there any problems with serving pages as application/xhtml+xml?". All these questions ring a bell somewhere, but I have no idea how to turn that into a good answer at an interview... Whenever I run into problems I just try to fix them... I'd like to think that's more important than this factual knowledge.

callahad 11y ago
> "Are there any problems with serving pages as application/xhtml+xml?" That was more relevant when XHTML was still vying to be the future of markup on the web. The issue was that the XHTML content type mandated a strict XML parser that hard failed if your markup wasn't well-formed, whereas HTML is more lenient. With XHTML, it was easy for a single stray closing tag to kill your entire site. This was an especially common concern if you allowed markup in, say, comments.
- atom-morgan 11y ago
  > That was more relevant when XHTML was still vying to be the future of markup on the web. Unfortunately many interviewers still ask these types of questions even if it's no longer relevant.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

buro9 11y ago

This basically says: Learn all the things! But the best front-end people I ever saw did not learn all the things. They learned a few things, mastered even fewer of those things, but ultimately understood how to make what they had learned work for them to do whatever they needed to do. If anyone is reading the handbook and thinking this is too much, you'll never get through it... you're right, it is and you won't. Just learn HTML really well, CSS fairly well (and pick a tool to help manage the CSS) and learn raw JS and one of the helper systems (JQuery). That's it... get the core skills right, get those mastered, and the rest will come easily and you'll understand when and why to use them.

aklemm 11y ago
This is great advice. Especially in a time where people from varied backgrounds are scrambling to learn software development, it is critical to stay focused on what matters to avoid getting bogged down. So, for anyone getting bogged down, just get back to handling your CSS and learning your JavaScript fundamentals along with one framework.

f0rgot 11y ago

How do you save on hacker news?

icebraining 11y ago
Upvote it.

jfaucett 11y ago

Who can look at this list and actually want to start getting into frontend development? 30 learn X entries not to mention 30x lists of tools for each area. Front end development seems to have gotten beyond ridiculuously complicated - especially when you consider half these entries will probably be outdated in 6 months time and almost certainly in 2 years time.

domrdy 11y ago

The best frontend developers I know are those that actually stick to frontend development. Imho its one of the most frustrating job in the field yet underappreciated and looked down upon.

gozo 11y ago

Seriously, how is this on the front page and why do I get down voted for pointing out that it is less than excellent? If you want to be a better developer, especially as a front-end developer, you need to learn how to write and value good documentation. Let's take a look at the first paragraph: > Below is a list and description of various front-end job titles Completely redundant, just makes reading and editing it harder. > The common, or most used (i.e. generic), title for a front-end developer is, "front-end developer" or "front-end engineer". Common/most used/generic? There's no need for this clarification and developer versus engineer is already covered by that subsection. > Note that any job that contains the word "front-end", "client-side", "web UI", "HTML", "CSS", or "JavaScript" typically infers that a person has some degree of HTML, CSS, DOM, and JavaScript professional know how. So HTML, CSS and JavaScript means HTML, CSS and JavaScript? Even if you want to keep this line it's an easy rewrite to 'Jobs that contain "front-end", "client-side" or "web UI" imply work experience with HTML, CSS and JavaScript'. I could go on and on, like the use of "when the word" everywhere. Half of every description is fluff that is already obvious by the context. It's not properly written for it's audience. If you don't know what testing is you're not going to be enlightened by a list of tests, you need to describe what someone in testing does and what purpose it has. > When the word "Acessibility" is included in the job title, this will denote that the developer has extensive experience crafting front-end technologies that support accessibility requirements and standards. Again, seriously?

underwater 11y ago
Your comment was almost as long as the page you're complaining about. Maybe channel your time into writing something useful instead of just complaining that what others do isn't good enough. Your complaints were all about on the first page. There are a lot more pages, and decent enough content on subsequent pages.
- gozo 11y ago
  And what does your own condescending remarks add exactly? This was the page that was linked and frankly it wasn't good enough for HN nor did it reflect particularly good on front-end developers. Maybe something you yourself should think about when posting comments with a claimed employer in your profile.