> The toolkits, the apparently billions of dependencies, the vastly complicated build processes... Except instead of a 50 line experiment, it’s a gazillion line

> The toolkits, the apparently billions of dependencies, the vastly complicated build processes... Except instead of a 50 line experiment, it’s a gazillion lines of God knows what 87 levels removed from whatever code I actually wrote. Instead start with pure HTML, SVG, CSS and JavaScript. Use MDN for documentation. Pick one browser to develop on (any one will do). Why? Most importantly you are learning how the low level browser code works, and you are building your own taste about using the core languages. Just like learning machine code helps with your C++ development. You don't need build processes unless you are developing commercially. The frameworks provide opinionated APIs, but they are often too abstract and are providing complex enterprisey features. There is not that much difference between browsers now. And jQuery is bollocks (it was mostly golden for adding code to HTML pages that were served from a back end). If you want to get a webdev job then maybe do some thinking on what framework and tools you want on your resume, and learn that framework/tooling after you have mastered non-framework browser development. But my guess is that webdev is likely not a good fit if you like engineering your software. My experience is now outdated, but I wrote my own framework which morphed over time as we supported other browsers and newer versions of browsers. I started my career on embedded software, so perhaps I am more cynical than most! My framework was far better engineered than most (for the reliability we needed). Other frameworks delivered on other goals that were not aligned with our needs. It is a very frustrating road writing pages for browsers because everything feels arbitrary and you have very little control over the engineering and you are at the mercy of browser quirks: you are often forced to come up with shitty expedient solutions that work if you are dong commercial work, and I very rarely felt clean. There is no beauty to web development: it is dirty work that I would try and do the best I could to achieve the outcomes we needed. Compromising constantly...