Is Learning Web Development Directly with Frameworks a Mistake?

“Is this a parenting mistake?” 😂😂😂

Love this! I feel like this whole take is so underrated. I completely relate to this! I started my web dev journey with React (I like using the term “React baby” for this) and I’ve been playing catch up in recent years to retroactively learn and explore the web platform. That’s been paying dividends!

I think one thing I’ve noticed with the “embrace the magic of frameworks while also cherishing the beauty of basic web development” approach is that a lot of developers who agree with this stance says this, but it’s never enough for production. Maybe a few web fundamentals bleed over as a result of their exploration, but a lot of time I’ve seen people reach for “battle tested frameworks” when it comes time for serious work.

That’s why I think this take is underrated. I think more people should explore what the web platform has to offer, understand the problems different frameworks solve and only opt into them when necessary.

they should never overshadow the essence of web development - CSS and vanilla JavaScript

I remember developing for the web before Firebug was released. When Macromedia was cool and HomeSite was the IDE du jour. (We won't talk about Dreamweaver and FrontPage.)

Oh wait: you don't know about Firebug? Imagine—if you dare—a world before dev tools existed.

I'm no purist; I don't develop on a 386 connected to a CRT monitor and bang out code in vi using an OEM IBM mechanical keyboard. I wonder, though, how many devs who started earnestly coding in the time since React was released ten years ago could, as an exercise, create a non-trivial responsive web page that interacts with a server using vanilla, modern HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Something like a contact page: input some information on a form and send the contents to yourself as an email. No bundlers/packers/package managers, no console.log() (alert() is okay), no frameworks. By all means use ECMAScript 2023 and level 3+ CSS specs and the backend of your choice; we aren't supporting IE6 after all 😉

Make it an annual exercise. I wonder if something like No Framework February is an idea we could rally around.

In a world of abstractions and ever-growing tool chains and frameworks, sometimes it's refreshing to run on bare metal and return to first principles.

While on my journey to coaching, i have found two types of students mainly:
One who go from fundamentals to basics to advanced and other who go fundamentals to advanced to basics primarily because they can't understand anything in that domain and then they move to fundamental again because they didn't pay much attention there in the first place and then they move to advanced practices and topics again only to swing back to basics and then move again to advanced.

Now I don't know about you guys, but i coach not for money, but for experience. Not the experience of the field but the experience of understanding the psyche of monkey brains that all students have at that level. But of the both types, i have a very diverse conclusion. The first type of students, their code is extremely well done, basic but from the syntax to logic, their output is very consistent. But the second type of students, their code practices are much more chaotic. They write code without thinking of the concequences most of the time and mostly follow the methodology of what works just works and is enough.

It gets equally hard to judge them, as you first have to understand their psychology, the drive that drives them, both of them are equally ambitious. But their ideologies make them a very different kind of developer from the other kind.

But one thing i can vouch for a 100%. If you make them collaborate in an even pack i.e. 1 of each kind in a pair, they groom each other. Their practices start to streamline a lot. Two of the same kind if collaborate, they end up losing interest after a little while.

I dont know what my take is out of this. Afterall i wrote all of this while sitting in my bathroom under a shower :p but maybe the psychology and collaborative experiences do matter, maybe just maybe, our grooming patterns need grooming too. There is no shame in learning javascript either from react, or plain old js. You eventually end up in the same place. How much time you spend while at it completely depends on the drive you have. Doesn't matter what kind. Your curiosity will always lead you there.

Everything said is true, I myself experienced that even in a different ecosystem, jumping off and skipping the foundational building blocks of a learning endeavor is a big mistake, regardless of how far we go, without a clear understanding of the underlying essentials, it's never a good practice, that holds true for whichever concept, idea, technology or a language.
Learning and mastering the fundamentals results in a potent foundation which can be fruitfully harnessed to build on top.
Nice post, very well said ❤️

I do agree. I think its best to learn plain CSS make projects with it until you are conformable using it. Then you learn frame works. And the same goes with JavaScript.

Another down side is that it may make using the frame work harder because you dont know the concepts needed like functions or classes to use the framework well.

Talking about a "spoiled generation" (of programmers) sounds a lot like simply regretting to get older and looking back on earlier times in a nostalgic way imaging a past never actually existed.

I often present myself as an old-school developer starting web development before CSS , Firebug and React. While that's true, it's also misleading. I did use Flash, Dreamweaver, and Homesite and it helped to proceed and experiment before seeking to break out of its limitations and learn to write my own HTML from the start. Today's generation might have a similar experience with WebFlow, WordPress or Elementor.

React is another story, as it doesn't limit you that much, but it makes you learn domain-specific syntax only partially related to the underlying concepts and target technologies like HTML, CSS, and ECMAScript / JavaScript. But then again, those technologies can also be seen as syntactical sugar on top of machine languages or browser bytecode, so does it matter that much in the end? Even machine language is an abstraction, but that doesn't mean everybody needs to start soldering bare metal before designing their own websites.

I imagine there must have been strong opposition when the piano became popular as a music instrument, or what about a church organ or a digital synthesizer: it's all fake like electronic music in general, and people must not use any of those unless they learned to sing and build their own instruments. But the point is: some eventually will want to do that!

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of vanilla web tech and I will tell everyone they should learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, understand core concepts and care about cross-browser compatibility and accessibility. But frameworks can be the perfect tool in a specific situation and they're no highway to hell but rather a stepping stone for aspiring developers.

I don't think it's a mistake. I think it's more like... the wrong framework can really mess with your learning curve. You have to find the right balance. Django worked well for me, Ruby on Rails worked for others.

This is myopic. This is classic. This is untrue. Frameworks are capable of enhancing one's understanding of fundamental CS principles as well as common design patterns. Frameworks leverage language use and enforce guidelines (guard rails) for building complex systems in less time.

People have this same achievement bias opinion about the IDE. It's blather.

Great and much-needed article. Learning development using Frameworks can make things easy and make your job-ready faster. But, it won't be a long game. I have met developers who knew the complex functionalities of Laravel but were not aware of the basic array-related functions of PHP.

If you get a chance, would you read my latest article here on dev.to?
Top 5 things a Framework is NOT responsible for!

The stuff under the hood is under there for a reason. You don't need to know how it works to use it.
Remember that it is all abstraction until you get down to machine code so I would say that junior Devs only need to know how to use the framework. As you progress you will dig deeper into the lower levels of abstraction, especially where they surface in your framework of choice. To use React you really need to understand array.map; if you use Vue or Angular you get away with not knowing these for longer but you may get to understand ref.value and idempotent state objects sooner.
But I wrote my first websites in PERL and cgi_bin so what do I know.

My first program was entered into the computer with switches! I’ve worked on web projects since the gopher net. So, I first learned HTML and CSS before the was JavaScript. When JavaScript came, I picked it up as well. So, I agree with this article. I think everyone should start their journey without any frameworks and then add them on later. Then you know how to best use the framework instead of letting the framework master you!

Mostly yes. Kind of like the debate of not using calculators in math exams.