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As a backend developer, where do I even start with frontend? Feeling major choice paralysis

As a backend developer, where do I even start with frontend? Feeling major choice paralysis - Feddit.dk

I’m an experienced backend developer. To me, the backend world seems super simple compared to the frontend world. It seems like there are a million options and I don’t have the experience to say what’s good and what’s not. I’m hit with major choice paralysis, basically. I don’t have any special requirements - I “just” want to build a pretty standard, responsive, modern-looking UI. Ideally without too much boilerplate, in a framework that “feels good”, in a way that might at some point attract other contributors as well, if I get to the point of open sourcing. Of course I could just reach for the most popular thing i.e. React, but that doesn’t seem to be the “hip” thing to use nowadays (or maybe I’m wrong? What do I know, I’m a backend dev). But even if I choose a framework, there’s a million other libraries out there to choose as well. For instance, which UI library to choose? What about observability and state management and authentication and so on? Sorry if this is a bit ranty. I am honestly just looking for an experienced frontend developer to point me in some direction (i.e. some set of frameworks/libraries; a “stack” if you will), so I can get out of this choice paralysis. What would be your go-to stack for a new frontend project today?

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Mister Neon Oct 29

First get the basics with HTML and CSS. Learn JavaScript then Typescript. Figure out if you want to learn SaSS, styled components (for JavaScript based applications), or a library like Tailwind. Do YouTube searches and research on React, Vue, and Angular. See which one gels with you.

I suggest Udemy for that and if you’re interested I can suggest specific teachers.

If you or your company is hiring UI/UX developers then DM me, hopefully then I’ll train you myself.

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SorteKanin Oct 29

Sorry, I should’ve made myself clearer. I am an experienced backend developer but I know basic HTML, CSS and JS/TS. My problem is not with learning the basics of these foundational technologies, or learning anything actually. My problem is what should I even learn and what is a good stack-choice, taking into account not just my own enjoyment and what is popular/cool, but futureproofing and maintainability as well. I don’t have time to go through all frontend frameworks. There are simply too many and it is not an exercise I find enjoyable.

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Mister Neon Oct 29

Well there is no silver bullet. My two cents is React, but that drives people nuts. Pick one of the big three (React, Angular, and Vue) and then start practicing.

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SorteKanin Oct 29

My two cents is React, but that drives people nuts.

Could you elaborate on why you think it drives people nuts? And why you are recommending it despite that? Genuine questions, just looking for some reasoning as I have no intuition in this area myself.

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Mister Neon Oct 29

The negative feedback I get from more engineer minded people (I’m more design minded) is that the library is bloated and its features are convoluted. When it first came out and it was completely class based components that was confusing to me. Now the library is focused on functional components which makes it more intuitive in my opinion. With that said React is my bread and butter.

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SorteKanin Oct 29

more engineer minded people (I’m more design minded)

I’m definitely more engineer-minded, but that is another thing I’m having to deal with in my frontend journey here 😅. Figuring out how to code a UI is one thing, but figuring out what the UI should even look like to begin with is a whole other thing. A thing I’m very uncertain about still. Were you always design-minded or was it something you learned? I feel like I was always engineer-minded and backend came very naturally to me.

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Mister Neon

I’m a visual thinker and I love art. I picked up coding 10 years ago for survival purposes (I’m currently unemployed). What you need to understand about frontend development is that everything being rendered on screen as DOM elements are fancy looking blocks on a grid. Key value pairs never go away, they just get a coat of paint. There are best practices such as making sure not to put #000000 text on a #ffffff background and some fancy CSS tricks to make things visually appealing. You need to translate brand guidelines and designs into variables so you can template out as much as you can for reusability. Using the ANDI browser extension will check your DOM for accessibility so people with screen readers and poor eye sight will be able to use your app.

Dear god someone give me a job.