As a front-end developer, I often find challenge in overcoming a plateau or knowing what to do next in 2020.
In this mindset, I stumbled across the Front-end Developer Handbook 2019, which is mind-blowing in its breadth (more about this soon). The guide was last updated in April 2019 according to GitHub. It is still relevant and acutely insightful, with no 2020 edition yet.
I am going to detail everything you need to know about the Front-end Developer Handbook 2019: what it is, key learnings, and a helpful breakdown of the book by its audience, depth of learning material, and even how fun the manual is to read --- since after all, reading technical manuals ought to be fun.
If you like the content in this article, you can also find my other content at my blog, Books on Code.
Overview
Front-end Developer Handbook 2019 is a complete getting-started guide for anyone who wants to become a self-taught front-end web developer in present year. It is a free book, which is accessible online or downloadable in pdf or epub formats. It talks about everything from all the various tools developers might encounter in 2019 to practical career advice like salary expectations.
When you get deeper, the guide presents tons of links to resources on any front-end topic you want to know. There's also a great concluding chapter for resources about developer communities, podcasters, newsletters, and even more reading. From that list, I recommend the Front-End Focus newsletter, which introduced me to the Front-end Developer Handbook 2019 in the first place. 😉
To find this guide and enjoy its glory (before coming back to read my review of it, of course), see Front-end Developer Handbook 2019.
3 Takeaways
In the following sections, I describe my key takeaways from Front-end Developer Handbook 2019. Reading books, even technical books, is a personal experience. By sharing what resonated with me, I hope to share the energy and spirit the book conveys.
Top comments (5)
This handbook is really good. I used it to create my own guide for beginner:
How to Become a Front-end Developer in 2019
Thanks for sharing, Dimitri. I like that you created a paired-down set of resources for beginners. It's awesome.
I think it's funny that the title of the first resource is "HTML and CSS is Hard." I have a post that will be out in a weeks titled "Nobody Knows HTML (Except for Me)," because I think that everyone other than a front-end dev mistakenly thinks HTML is easy. 😂
Thanks, Dimitri!
Getting Real ⇢ basecamp.com/books/getting-real
Thanks for sharing this, Vladi! I'll take a look.
Curious if there's any sections that resonated with you -- that I might pay closer attention to. 😊