Well, if you want to become a front-end developer, If you want to work with the latest tools and frameworks, you would need the exact same things. Core understanding of HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
Now, I understand where this question comes from. Asked in another way it would be “which is the sickest JS library I need to know”. If that’s not the case, just start learning vanilla JS. When you get that, (and trust me, it won’t happen too fast as JS is very weird language) you can start diving React.
Angular has it’s shines, but honestly React.js look hot right now and it’s all the hype.
About what we previously considered front-end dev — CSS and HTML with jQuery to get by, make sure you understand what a good architecture is. How to build scalable projects and how to maintain a proper style guide.
All of this happens with a lot of reading, trial and error and good mentorship if possible. If you’re just starting as a front-end developer, unless you’re very good and have a TON of work, chances are you won’t get to see everything cool and work on it before. And by then, you wouldn’t ask this question.
So, as a first time starter (not even junior yet) do this:
- Learn CSS, then Sass and keep on reading about modular CSS, PostCSS and the like to get you moving
- Read about good HTML semantics, learn how to build proper app and how everything works together (HTML+CSS). Sounds simple and easy, but the moment you start working on large project for more than a year, you will see just how many things are going on.
- Begin with JS fundamentals. Get all core terminology understood and make sure you understand why all the hot JS frameworks exist before you use them. Important. You can get by without this. But if you want to excel in the field, you need it.
If you are junior dev and looking forward to getting up the ladder:
- Find your most favorite open source project and start reading all the discussions there, see why the developers do certain things. Browse the code. Start working on your patches. Get into the community for real, not for one nice Sunday afternoon.
- Continue reading all latest news on the CSS/JS topic. What are the latest updates from Vue, React and the like. How CSS is used, what are new things there, what tricks exist, how CSS works with the browser, how to improve performance
- Spend a week to understand the rendering process for the browser. Check Mozilla’s new “quantum” engine and so on. Actually understand what is happening in general.
- Work on as many projects as you can. So 12 hours shifts every few days, keep learning. Try to work on large projects. Revisit every 2–3 months older code and try to spend at least 2–3 hours improving it. By doing that you will actually see your mistakes much better than just reading the code.
- If you’re not already in a team, start working in one. Talk with developers from other fields, not just front-end. Understand a bit about the back-end, the servers and the like. Talk with the designers, start explaining them what is possible and what not.
- Create your pet projects (of course, open source). Try to connect it with some data, do some routing and such. Examples: Make a todo (duuuuuuh….), make a poll, make a pizza maker with toppings, make a game “who has the fastest reactions” where to players play on the same keyboard, store results. Make an online game for fastest types where you highlight the words to type, the errors. Make it real time to compete with others -> learn node, express, Socket.IO
- and others.
- Do the same with React ^
- After all of this you would have researched and read a lot. No reason to answer you more, you will get the idea of what is happening and continue on your own.
- Cmon, do you really need an answer?
In short - Just keep learning, build a lot of stuff, read like crazy and keep track of the latest news. Participate in open source communities, work in a team, try to be a mentor, revisit your previous work for confidence boost and all the mentioned things above.
