š¤ resources and meetups
or, the ālet me Google that for youā part.
tl;dr
RTFM. (via Classic Programmer Paintings)
- inspiration: Bret Victor, The Great Divide (ooooops I guess weāre* full-stack developers now, The Widening Responsibility for Front-End Developers), These things I believe, The Pragmatic Engineer, CSS Zen Garden, Indie Hackers, The Melting Pot of JavaScript, Donāt Learn to Code, Feudalism of the web, How to Become a Hacker, Hackers and Painters, Happiness Takes (A Little) Magic, Irrational Exuberence (StaffEng), Kalzumeus, Nolan Lawson, A Smart Bear, Choose Boring Technology
- references to this guide: Grabās Frontend Guide, Developer Roadmap, Best of JS, Frontend Checklist, Web Almanac, Robin Wieruch, Periodic Table of Web APIs
references
- Mozilla Developer Network: the best reference for web technologies.
- Stack Overflow: the go-to place for when youāve RTFM and still donāt WTF is broken.
- //grep.app: search across tons of git repos for example code.
- Can I useā¦?: to check cross-browser support for a particular feature.
- āHell is other browsers ā Sartreā (from QuirksMode, the original support reference)
- Also related: Can I emailā¦?
- Also related: State of Interop
- WHATWG: if youāre feeling reeaaaally technical.
- W3C: if youāre feeling reeaaaally technical.
- devhints.io: helpful, quick cheatsheets.
inspiration
- Bret Victor: my personal hero. ā
- The Future of Programming: amazing video of how much is still left to be done.
- Inventing on Principle: a fantastic video on figuring out the āwhyā of coding.
- The Great Divide: what does it actually mean to be a āfrontend developerā. a must read.
- ooooops I guess weāre full-stack developers now: follow-up essay.
- The Widening Responsibility for Front-End Developers: another follow-up essay.
- These things I believe: an impassioned essay on user interfaces and software.
- The Pragmatic Engineer: great articles on engineering as a career.
- CSS Zen Garden: the original site showcasing the usefulness of CSS.
- Indie Hackers: independent projects showing how you can make it on your own.
- The Melting Pot of JavaScript: Dan Abramovās essay on the love of JS.
- Donāt Learn to Code: building a product is just as rewarding.
- Feudalism of the web: interesting take on current state of affairs on the web.
- How to Become a Hacker: the original hackerās manual by an open source legend.
- Hackers and Painters: on the art of coding, a classic essay.
- Happiness Takes (A Little) Magic: donāt forget to unplug.
- Irrational Exuberence: Great career advice, esp. for senior engineers.
- StaffEng: Careeer advice for Staff/Principal Engineers.
- Kalzumeus: Great writings on software development and career advice.
- Nolan Lawson: Writings on open source and JS.
- Choose Boring Technology: Not everything shiny is gold/needed to make a killer app.
Shawn Wang coined a term for a new stack this year: STAR or Design System, TypeScript, Apollo, and React. This is incredible to me, not just because I kind of like that stack, but because itās a way of talking about the stack powering a website that is entirely front-end technologies. Quite a shift. ā Chris Coyier
tutorials
- Google Developers: has useful guides from time to time on making your site more performant/secure.
- Hacker Noon: useful guides on various technologies.
- Dive into HTML5: great tutorial on HTML5.
- MITās Computer Science course: for some computer science background.
- freeCodeCamp: collection of tutorials on various topics.
- gitconnected: collection of tutorials on various topics.
seo
- don't you have anything better to do?
news
- Chromium Blog: to keep a pulse on whatās new in latest browser tech.
- The Console Log: podcast on all things web.
- Hacker News: a central resource for all hackers, can be a bit overwhelming though.
- TechCrunch: startup news.
- State of JS: yearly survey of whatās being used in the wild.
- State of CSS: yearly survey of whatās being used in the wild for CSS.
- Cooperpress: Javascript Weekly, Frontend Focus, Node Weekly, React Status, and more newsletters.
books
- The Effective Engineer: excellent book on how to use your time well.
- Getting Real: a great guide on product and development from 37signals.
- Team Geek: a useful guide on how to collaborate with others.
- Software Engineering: The Soft Parts: great, short read on soft skills needed in the trade.
- Managing Humans: how to manage people, not bits.
- Turn the Ship Around!: how to manage by letting others lead.
- Microserfs: a classic fictional, fun read on what itās like to work for a startup.
- Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: treatise on the modern digital economy.
conferences
(iām admittedly not the biggest conference attendee so this list is wanting.)
- XOXO: the ā¤ of the web.
- JSConf: latest on JS.
- ReactConf: official conference offering the latest on React.
- React Rally: havenāt been myself, but the next biggest conference on React.
- List of city-specific React conferences: community reference on React.jsās site.
- others I hear good things about: ffconf, Strange Loop
how-to interview
- Preparing for a Front-End Web Development Interview: good summary of things you should know.
- Questions to ask a potential tech employer: make sure you ask questions, too.
- levels.fyi: compare salaries and levels between companies.
- topstartups is another salary comparison tool.
references to this guide
fun stuff
- xkcd: the gold standard in geek comics.
- Classic Programmer Paintings: art + code.
- CommitStrip: a dose of coding humor.
- Hacker Typer: u iz l33t.
- 8-bit Color Cycling: a bit of nostalgia with HTML5 sprinkled in.
- Katamari Hack: na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na.
- How it feels to learn JavaScript in 2016: so true itās not funny.
- Iām harvesting credit card numbers and passwords from your site. Hereās how.: heās kidding, right? OMG.
- The Birth and Death of Javascript: a classic talk.
- I finally escaped Node and What Color is Your Function?: some fair critiques of Node and JS.
šøļø the future
the end