That time my buddy told me to skip learning the basics and jump straight into React

My friend Dave, who's been a dev for like 5 years, told me I'd waste months learning vanilla JavaScript and HTML first. He said just start with React and figure out the rest as I go. So I did that for 3 weeks and couldn't even build a simple form without getting lost in the framework. Went back to basics last month and now I actually understand what the hell I'm doing when I touch React. Anyone else get bad advice from experienced devs who forgot what it's like to be new?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_david1mo ago

Ha! Yeah that spaghetti code thing hits way too close to home. I remember building this mess of a form with React and I had state variables everywhere, like twenty of them for a simple signup page, and I couldnt even tell you which one did what by the end of the week. The worst part was when something broke I had no clue if it was a React problem or just me not knowing how JavaScript objects worked in the first place. Its like trying to build a house with fancy tools but you havent learned how to hammer a nail straight yet. Your point about Dave forgetting his own early days is spot on too because once youve been doing this for years those basics just become muscle memory and you dont even realize how much you rely on them.

black.margaret1mo ago

Man "skip the basics and jump into React" - I swear that advice should come with a warning label. I did the exact same thing, thought I was being smart by diving straight into the framework. Spent two weeks just trying to figure out why my components kept breaking, only to realize I didn't even know how to properly select DOM elements. Ended up building a whole website's worth of spaghetti code that I couldn't even explain to myself the next day. Now I tell new devs the same thing: learn to crawl before you try running a marathon with Bluetooth headphones. Your buddy Dave probably forgot how much time he spent learning the basics back in the day.