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Discussion on: Why Everyone Is Fighting About CSS/UX and JS

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Fred Ross

A lot of what you're seeing is incidental complexity. The fundamentals remain. Learn:

  • HTML, including image srcsets, flexbox, and grid layout
  • CSS
  • how to manipulate the DOM in vanilla JavaScript
  • enough HTTP to be able to put parse a request and send a response (probably HTTP 1.2, 2 and 3 are very different but the basic ideas remain).
  • how to expose an HTTP endpoint in some language (PHP, Python, Go, Node, whatever)
  • how SSL works and how to set it up
  • browser security, CSRF, etc.
  • web accessibility
  • how to structure a GUI application with MVC[1]

These are the highest value uses of your time. React and other frameworks can be useful, but they are ephemeral and they can't help if you don't know the fundamentals. They're distractions from the real stuff that is going to last.

[1]: Before someone starts chiming in about React or other things obsoleting this, they don't. React's flow is just inversion of control in MVC.