A few of my friends are learning or have recently learned their first programming language. By my observation[0], what prevents them from building real projects is that while they know the language, they aren’t very comfortable with any frameworks.
I’m not arguing that you have to know frameworks to build real projects. However, I believe knowledge of a framework reduces the effort required to complete a working solution so dramatically that it changes the game, especially if you’re new to programming.
I’m not a pro by any means, but my practical advice would be: don’t stop at having learned JavaScript (the language) and Node.js (the platform). Learn Meteor.js[1], build all the examples you can find in the official docs, and after you become familiar with the process—the ideas will flow.
[0] It was a surprise to me, but in retrospect it should’ve been obvious as I myself have quite literally learned Django before Python.
[1] Meteor is just an example that came to my mind, I’m not affiliated with them and it’s possible that there are better choices in the land of Node.js-based web frameworks.
I’m not arguing that you have to know frameworks to build real projects. However, I believe knowledge of a framework reduces the effort required to complete a working solution so dramatically that it changes the game, especially if you’re new to programming.
I’m not a pro by any means, but my practical advice would be: don’t stop at having learned JavaScript (the language) and Node.js (the platform). Learn Meteor.js[1], build all the examples you can find in the official docs, and after you become familiar with the process—the ideas will flow.
[0] It was a surprise to me, but in retrospect it should’ve been obvious as I myself have quite literally learned Django before Python.
[1] Meteor is just an example that came to my mind, I’m not affiliated with them and it’s possible that there are better choices in the land of Node.js-based web frameworks.