I truly appreciate and respect your experience. But I'm not sure if this is a good thing to be taken as a universal best-practice. As has been alluded to in other comments, the most important thing about learning a language is: What interests you about that language??
As much as I love JS, it's easy now to forget just how frustrating it can be to try to build anything (of note) in pure JS. Specifically, despite all its utility, a lotta first-time devs look at "raw" JS and think, "Yeah, sure - but... how do I actually create something that I can see??" In that respect, React can be pretty damn cool cuz it can get you right into the UI side of things faster and easier than with basic JS.
Also, keep in mind that, with modern apps, it's probably challenging to dive into any platform if you don't know the core JS fundamentals. I can't imagine that it'd be much fun for a pure noob to dive head-first into Angular if they didn't know the first thing about JS. But there are times when a framework's conventions force you to learn more about the underlying language.
I recently connected with someone on LinkedIn who, like me, wants to create a free educational platform for JS devs. One unique perspective he brings is that a lot of the failings of core JavaScript education is that it's usually bolted on to HTML/CSS education as an afterthought, at least in the early stages. His answer is going the opposite route: Learning JS on the backend (via Node.js) first, then moving to frontend development.
A tangent to this is the fact that, at this point in my career, I've basically forgotten how challenging it can be to do "just" HTML/CSS. Granted, HTML is "just" a markup language. And it doesn't have nearly as much complexity as handling loops, and conditionals, and API calls, and...
But some years ago, I took up the task of teaching a friend how to code. And I didn't realize just how much "base" knowledge I've acquired over the years that is often applied before you write even your first line of logic. To me, writing HTML/CSS is like coloring. But for brand-spankin-new devs, that's not always the case.
And when you throw in more "advanced" concepts, like responsive design and the flex model, well, it's not always as simple as just throwing some tags around some content.
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I truly appreciate and respect your experience. But I'm not sure if this is a good thing to be taken as a universal best-practice. As has been alluded to in other comments, the most important thing about learning a language is: What interests you about that language??
As much as I love JS, it's easy now to forget just how frustrating it can be to try to build anything (of note) in pure JS. Specifically, despite all its utility, a lotta first-time devs look at "raw" JS and think, "Yeah, sure - but... how do I actually create something that I can see??" In that respect, React can be pretty damn cool cuz it can get you right into the UI side of things faster and easier than with basic JS.
Also, keep in mind that, with modern apps, it's probably challenging to dive into any platform if you don't know the core JS fundamentals. I can't imagine that it'd be much fun for a pure noob to dive head-first into Angular if they didn't know the first thing about JS. But there are times when a framework's conventions force you to learn more about the underlying language.
I recently connected with someone on LinkedIn who, like me, wants to create a free educational platform for JS devs. One unique perspective he brings is that a lot of the failings of core JavaScript education is that it's usually bolted on to HTML/CSS education as an afterthought, at least in the early stages. His answer is going the opposite route: Learning JS on the backend (via Node.js) first, then moving to frontend development.
If you're interested, his project is available at github.com/HansUXdev/JavaScript-First.
Very cool!
A tangent to this is the fact that, at this point in my career, I've basically forgotten how challenging it can be to do "just" HTML/CSS. Granted, HTML is "just" a markup language. And it doesn't have nearly as much complexity as handling loops, and conditionals, and API calls, and...
But some years ago, I took up the task of teaching a friend how to code. And I didn't realize just how much "base" knowledge I've acquired over the years that is often applied before you write even your first line of logic. To me, writing HTML/CSS is like coloring. But for brand-spankin-new devs, that's not always the case.
And when you throw in more "advanced" concepts, like responsive design and the flex model, well, it's not always as simple as just throwing some tags around some content.