ALRIGHT YOU MAGGOTS

Welcome to class 101 on how to become a better front-end developer. My name is Mauro Accorinti and I will be your drill sergeant for the next few emails.

(Pssss... In case you missed it, I asked on LinkedIn last week what frontend developers want to learn and what I should write about for the next few emails. Half voted for "Become a better frontend developer." And so, that's what we'll get into this month. Okay, now back to the screaming.)

This will be a 4 part series that I will send to your inboxes each and every week. You will read these emails. You will understand them. And they will teach you the road to becoming a better front-end developer. Are we clear maggot?

...

I SAID ARE WE CLEAR MAGGOT!?

Oh sh- you better respond.

"S-SIR YES SIR!!!"

...You yell out with fear in your voice.

Good. Let's start then.

Welcome to the "how to become a better frontend developer" boot camp

In most other front-end boot camps, you learn the basics of what front-end developers do.

In those other front-end boot camps, they teach you HTML. They teach you CSS. They teach you Javascript. Maybe even React if you're painfully unlucky. Then, force you to create projects while woefully unprepared to do so (because you learned how to program only weeks earlier).

This isn't that kind of boot camp, maggot.

Something that I've never seen anybody else truly break down is how to improve as a front-end dev when you're learning, no matter your skill level.

What are the skills you should focus on now? Which libraries/frameworks/tools should you learn? Why should you learn them? Out of everything that there is to know... what should you do first, and for how long? And how does it fit all into the umbrella of Frontend developer? And more importantly, how does it branch into general software engineering?

It can be confusing at times. There will be times when you're stuck and you don't know how to grow. There will be times when there's too much to know, and you're overwhelmed.

In those trying times, you need to completely stop. Think. And finally, ask yourself: what is the purpose behind what you're learning? What's its utility? And how does it help the goals you serve in your role as a front-end developer?

Oh wait, that's right. Nobody has told you what your goals as a front-end developer are, have they? Do you know them? Well, get ready you maggot. This email is going to talk about the goals you have as a front-end developer.

As a frontend developer, you only have three goals

Those goals are:

1. To build web pages based on designs and requirements with best practices
2. To work well together with others (Project managers, developers, clients)
3. To advocate for and create the best user experience possible

Every single skill you can imagine that a front-end needs or finds useful to learn is in one of those buckets or at the intersection of them. We can represent this best through the use of a Venn diagram.

If we were in this case to randomly choose an assortment of skills used by frontend developers like:

• HTML
• CSS
• JS
• React/Vue/Angular/etc.
• Testing
• Accessibility
• Animations
• Git
• Slack
• Jira
• Microsoft Teams
• Figma
• Empathy
• Basic design Knowledge
• How to talk with clients
• Good communication

And populate it in the diagram, we can see how they fit:

Unfortunately, that's only a handful of the skills you need as a frontend. The full list, exploring each and more will be included in the next email.

Until then,

Your Skill Sergeant, Mauro Accorinti