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?

  • orbitz@lemmy.ca
    1·
    3 days ago

    As someone self taught in both (okay some schooling but I don’t use much beyond some of the principles/design I learned), even learning frameworks you need to understand HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Okay maybe less JavaScript with something but I don’t know them.

    I picked Angular for something, maybe not the best, uses typescript which I like. But in the end it’s just to hold variables. After awhile I could easily write something to dynamically create a form in the way I wanted. There are other things I use but if I really wanted I could probably do it all my own in JavaScript anyways.

    That’s why you learn them, without HTML you don’t know not to put things on a screen, without css you can’t organize or style it, without JavaScript you have no interaction. Learn them and you’ll figure it out.