Learning JavaScript from scratch can be as much about syntax as it is programming concepts, especially when it's your first language. Concepts like knowing how and why you need a place to store bits of data (variables), re-using code snippets instead of writing them repeatedly (functions), making decisions (conditional statements), and working with collections of data (arrays and looping) are all second nature to experienced developers. These concepts are the foundational building blocks that let you solve problems by thinking like a computer (sometimes this is called programmatic logic). In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss these key JavaScript basics including variables, functions, conditional statements, arrays, and looping.
Failure is a hard pill to swallow, but it's failure that allows us to grow as developers. When you're learning a language like JavaScript, there are a lot of concepts to take in, and even more ways to accomplish the same task. Sometimes, you'll choose a method that works...only to find out later that it's the "wrong" way to do it because of security, or efficiency. When that happens, many JavaScript developers will take the failure hard and let imposter syndrome take hold. In reality, these things will happen to you, and they should seen as a steppingstone as you work your way through junior developer all the way up to senior developer and beyond.
Next.js is a popular React framework that recently made some controversial changes with its 13.4 update. App router was moved to stable in this release bringing React server components, nested routers & layouts, simplified data fetching, streaming & suspense, and built-in SEO support. Unfortunately, some web developers are not excited for this release, with a few questioning if these changes align with what React initially aimed to solve. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed the Next.js 13.4 update, covering the difference between client and server components, and the community drama that stemmed from these changes.
HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are foundational web development technologies that Matt and Mike recommend web developers learn before trying out a framework (ie React, Svelte). Out of these three pillars, JavaScript is the most difficult to learn, especially for people that have never been exposed to programming before. Learning how to think and solve problems like a computer (programmatic logic) coupled with writing and understanding a brand-new syntax is no easy feat. These difficulties have sparked several guides, courses, and bootcamps all aimed at teaching people JavaScript and other web technologies using unique combinations of theory and project-based learning. Some people, however, will skip taking in any theory at all and go straight for project-based learning, referring to documentation and other written material only when they're really stuck. With such a difficult learning curve for junior developers, can they learn JavaScript through only project-based learning?
Full-stack development is one of the most difficult web development positions as it covers both the frontend and backend of a website. The frontend is responsible for the user interface, including any logic that powers that interface (ie animations, show/hide elements). The backend is responsible for features working from a server, typically handling security-heavy functions (ie credit card usage), and data manipulation (ie saving your profile changes). Luckily the combination of Svelte on the frontend and SvelteKit on the backend can make full-stack development easier than you might think with a fast development server, easy-to-follow file structure, and syntax that is easily picked up if you're coming from another JavaScript framework. This week Matt and Mike discussed how Svelte and SvelteKit can help you develop full-stack websites and apps faster than some of the other tools out there.
The tech world moves quickly, and web development is no exception...except that it seems like web development keeps re-inventing the wheel. Us web developers can make a blog in WordPress, Svelte + SvelteKit, React, Webflow, and many more. It seems like we spend most of our time arguing and creating new tools to develop the exact same end products, when we could be innovating and creating the next best thing. For our non-techie customers, they see no difference and form no opinion on whether their blog should be created using Svelte or React - yet we waste tons of hours learning different technologies that can pump out the same projects, with little difference. While the rest of the tech world looks to Apple for what they're calling "spatial computing" with the Vision Pro, and Meta for their affordable AR/VR experiences...websites remain large the same as they were a number of years ago. Does this mean that websites are being left behind, are they old news?
Learning JavaScript from scratch can be a real challenge, but once you're through it, your newfound programming knowledge will pay dividends for years into your career. JavaScript is one of the foundational technologies on which the web is built, alongside HTML and CSS. Knowing it gives you insight into how to "think like a computer" and offers a running start when you're ready to learn a JavaScript framework like React, Vue, or Svelte. This week, Matt and Mike discussed how to get started learning JavaScript as an absolute beginner looking to work their way through junior developer and beyond.
Coming back to a web development project after a long hiatus is difficult enough for a senior developer, let alone a junior developer. As a newbie when it comes to Svelte and SvelteKit, Matt tried to return to his passive income app weeks after his last visit, only to find himself stumped on what to work on next, and how everything he already had worked. This led him to question whether he should be restarting from scratch, re-engineering everything with the knowledge he remembered up to that point, or to start up a Udemy course to get situated with Svelte and SvelteKit again. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed the course of action that Matt took to get himself unstuck on his coding problem so he could continue programming and learning Svelte and SvelteKit.
On top of the growing collection of "must-know" tools in a web developer's arsenal is the famous (or maybe infamous?) TypeScript - a high-level programming language that adds static typing with optional type annotations to JavaScript. Developed by Microsoft, TypeScript can improve the developer experience by allowing the data that is passed around the code to be typed to something specific (ie Boolean), with TypeScript ready to throw an error if the types don't match appropriately through the program. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss TypeScript at length discussing whether you need to learn TypeScript and how to learn it whether you're a beginner, or veteran coder.
Practice makes perfect, so it makes sense when senior developers tell aspiring juniors to "just code" and it will all work out. The problem with "just code" is that a complete beginner will have no idea where to start, or what to code up. Should they use HTML, React, or PHP? What type of project should they code up? In this episode, Matt and Mike hope to lay out a clear pathway on where to start learning web development for absolute beginners. We hope that the discussion will also help those that are acting as mentors for soon-to-be junior web developers.
The web development community has a collection of hot takes that seem to continuously come up time and time again in social media discussions and podcast debates. Hot takes like the debate of whether or not HTML is a programming language, or if React is good. These, among several other hot takes, are typically rooted in divide among the community as friction points about what tools to use and how to use them spark fierce debate among those that work closely with them. In this week's episode, Matt and Mike discussed and debated a collection of these hot takes, offering their opinions on each one.
No-code platforms are useful tools for those that don't have the expertise to code up a web app, website, or mobile app themselves, but what if we told you that they can be useful for programmers too? No-code tools can save web developers time by offering a quick and easy creation platform that can typically be expanded upon with code (usually JavaScript). This week Matt and Mike discussed the importance of no-code being used alongside code to help teach new developers and assist veteran programmers with their tight deadlines.
Squashing bugs in your code can be as easy as finding a missing semicolon, but sometimes it can be a grueling process filled with torn out hair and console logs. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss the various ways that you can debug your code using methods that span HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. For HTML, the DOM inspector, markup validation, and accessibility checkers can ensure you have a clean structure for the rest of your code to work from. Then in the layout department, CSS debugging methods can include things like using the Computed tab in your dev tools, obvious visual markers (ie red borders on targeted elements), and various Chrome extensions. And finally, JavaScript - the part of your website that is most likely already acquainted with debugging includes methods like using alerts, breakpoints, asking AI to correct errors, and much more.
This episode is for all of you out there that are hesitant to release your website, blog post, or whatever it is you're working on - scared to hand it over to the audience that is supposed to consume it. Instead of releasing what we have on schedule, some of us may hesitate due to perfectionism, burnout, or anxiety over what the users may think. Sometimes a delay is warranted, but often these delays can impair your future decision making on how to update/upgrade your project as you'll have no user feedback to work from. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss working towards a project that is good enough to release, without focusing on all the "what ifs" for release.
With the current job market seemingly handing out nothing by layoffs, it may seem like landing a junior developer job is an impossible task. While we acknowledge that it is more difficult than it was a year or two ago to land a junior developer job, all hope is not lost. There are always people hiring, even during the worst economic downturns and those that keep at it have a higher chance at succeeding. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss how to help a junior developer in your life succeed through mentorship, connections, peer code reviews, and more.
Can an AI chat bot like ChatGPT teach a junior developer web development from scratch? What about an experienced web developer looking to update his skills on a new framework? In this premiere episode of Full-Stack Struggles, Matt documents his experience getting situated with Svelte + SvelteKit. As a beginner, he found himself needing assistance quite often and instead of reaching for a blog post, or some documentation, he instead reached for an AI chat bot - namely Bing AI. With the recent advancements in AI technology (especially chat bots), they've been the talk of the internet with how useful they can be as an alternative to Googling and sifting through countless results. Was chatting with an AI enough to answer all of Matt's questions?
In this interview episode, Matt and Mike sat down with Bob Ziroll the head of education for Scrimba to discuss all things React, escaping your comfort zone, teaching courses, and much more! Bob Ziroll is known for his React courses on both Scrimba and freeCodeCamp, he also anticipates starting a YouTube channel sometime soon.
CSS animations are somewhat of an advanced CSS topic that many people skip out on when they're developing their site's MVP, or first few versions. Further into its life though, CSS animations (and transitions for that matter) add a level of polish to a website that can subtly bring about a premium feel for its UI/UX. It's quite easy, however, to go overboard with animations and transitions to the point where they feel out of place, sometimes looking like they're just being done for the sake of another animation instead of complimenting the content on the page. This week, Matt and Mike discussed CSS animations and CSS transitions, discussing the good, bad, and the ugly when it comes to using them on your next project.
The advanced technical nature of web development coupled with what seems like a completely new dictionary to memorize can easily overwhelm junior developers before they've completed their learning journey. There is a lot of technical jargon and technical terms that must be understood to read documentation and hold a conversation with developer colleagues. These terms include things like data structures, algorithms, syntax, and much more. This week, Matt and Mike try and help simplify these terms into easy-to-understand definitions, so you don't get bogged down in memorization.
CSS is a crucial skill for frontend developers to learn and eventually master, but it's flanked by other tools that many employers demand skills in. Bootstrap, TailwindCSS, and SASS are all tools that assist in the development of user interfaces, by augmenting and expanding what vanilla CSS already offers. With this in mind, it's easy for a junior developer to start questioning when to move their learning journey on from vanilla CSS to something that an employer may have interest in. Many times this question can result in analysis paralysis and over a long period of time, may result in CSS tutorial hell. This week, Matt and Mike discuss this transition from learning vanilla CSS to learning the next step that applies to your goals.
Do you know enough JavaScript to move onto something else like React, or Svelte? How do you know if you'll be ready? This week, Matt and Mike discuss the vanilla JavaScript fundamentals you need to know before learning new tooling like React, or Svelte. We hope that this episode helps clear the air for any junior developers wondering if they should start the next step of their JavaScript learning journey, or if they still have more vanilla JS to learn.
The popularity of WordPress partly comes from its ability to transform into virtually any website creation tool you need. From a membership site managing tool, to an inventory control system with ecommerce, the WordPress plugin offerings seem to be able to make anything happen - with low, to no-code. This is, however, as long as everything keeps working the way it should. With critical errors like the WordPress white screen of death threatening websites at almost every turn, we discuss why knowing how to code (or at least manage hosting files) is a critical skill that many WordPress users don't realize they need...until it's too late.
Tech layoffs are in full swing right now, with companies shrinking their teams for a variety of reasons. This is a stark contrast to the hiring spree that we experienced and grew used to during the chaos that was the COVID-19 pandemic. Does this mean that junior developers should pack up and find work elsewhere? Should people that are still learning web development leave the field entirely?
The most popular social media & video sharing websites out there now support (or are centered around) vertical video in the form of short-form content that commonly comes in under a minute in length. As the popularity of these short-form videos has taken off in recent years, we've seen this form factor escape smartphones, arriving on desktop computers and TVs. Unfortunately, this presents designers with a perplexing problem as vertical video (portrait aspect ratio) is not ideal for screens that are almost always landscape (widescreen). In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss the rise of vertical video (short-form content), discussing & debating on how it is shaping our user interfaces, and how it could even start shaping the hardware we use in the home.
CSS attribute selectors are a lot more powerful than I thought! I wasn't aware that they could not only select elements based on the presence of an attribute, or the presence of an attribute with a specific value, but that they could also "filter" through that attribute value by placing specific parameters on them using just CSS. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss these "advanced attribute selectors" and cap the episode off by discussing another powerful CSS feature - custom attributes, done the right way!
