Told my mentor I hated JavaScript, he said one thing that made me pause

I was complaining to my old mentor about how all my beginner tutorials rely on JS frameworks and he just said 'you're not learning to code, you're learning to navigate.' Now I'm split between pushing through vanilla stuff and just jumping into React like everyone says. Anyone else feel like the beginner path is getting way too crowded with shortcuts that skip the basics?

2 comments

2 Comments

abbyg1419d agoMost Upvoted

Tbh your mentor said something real. Vanilla JS is like learning to swing a hammer before you buy a nail gun. Jumping straight into React means you'll spend half your time fighting the framework instead of understanding what's actually happening under the hood. My advice? Do one solid vanilla project, even if it's ugly. Then switch to React and you'll see why it exists. The shortcuts aren't bad, they're just useless if you don't know what they're shortcutting.

anthonymurray19d agoTop Commenter

Nah, @abbyg14, React taught me more than vanilla ever did.