As front-end developers, we create user interfaces. That means having a good user experience is our end when building software. Frameworks are tools for developers, not for users. They are just a means to an end. When we talk about frameworks, we are focusing on our own Developer Experience. Having conversations about frameworks is important because it can improve how we build a front-end. However, it's only important to developers. Your users simply don't care about frameworks.
Every web app you build ends up in the browser as simple HTML, CSS, and plain JavaScript. So, you should take care of the resulting code as much as you take care of the source code.
But how? Instead of focusing only on which framework, library or methodology is the best, I seek for knowledge about patterns that can make a difference to the user experience. Decisions over frameworks are temporary because the technology we use is constantly changing. Patterns that impact the user experience can be applied to any frontend regardless of the technology.
Just to be clear: I think learning the ins and outs of frameworks is necessary. I just believe it shouldn't be the only thing people focus on, as I've seen in most of the companies I worked for.
Some of the concepts I focused on learning along the road are:
- Accessibility (a11y)
- Microinteractions
- Optimistic UI
- Microdata
- Progressive Enhancement
- Graceful Degradation
- Design Systems
- Mobile first
- Offline first
I invest time keeping updated with the latest on HTML, CSS, browser APIs and JS. It actually makes it easier to jump from one framework to another when I need to get the job done.
Some time ago, I moved my tiny blog to use only plain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. After all, I was just processing markdown into markup. I used no frameworks, libraries, generators, or transpilers. I just applied the good practices that I mentioned above. They can be used out-of-the-box, regardless of the stack.
and focused on writting mindfull HTML, CSS, and JS.
The web is performant, responsive, and accessible by default. We engineers choose to break it or not all the time.