Frameworks VS. Fundamentals

While we can learn the fundamentals as we learn frameworks, if we had learned the fundamentals first then we would be able to solve these issues much faster.Time is Our Most Valuable AssetThe most important takeaway from this topic is that our time is limited and we need to learn what we need to know as fast as we can so that we can make something useful..The question is: how do we get there?.Of course, we’ll all take our own different path but I think that the correct choice is to choose balance..It is important to know the fundamentals..I don’t think anyone is arguing against them but learning how to use a library by itself is confusing when you need to do anything more than the basics and there are not many programmers who are paid to make programs that say “hello world” in a console window or a basic HTML page..In order to do anything with a framework, we need to know the basics and sometimes convoluting the basics of a language with a framework make understanding what you’re coding much more difficult and take even more time, especially when debugging.That’s not to say that it can’t be done..Back when I was in middle school, jQuery may have been a fine way to introduce JavaScript rather than learning the basics..I taught myself JavaScript instead and when I look back, I may have been able to save time by just using jQuery..I taught myself basic C++ but learning C++ with the help of a framework like GTK+ (or a binding for C++) would have allowed me to build better, more useful applications faster.The problem is that I may not be understanding what’s going on when I use these frameworks..Often times, I don’t need to know..However, I need to know some of these fundamentals first so that I can learn and use these frameworks faster and debug potential problems related to me not knowing the basics.I think it’s important to have a strong foundation to build on top of but you can also learn a framework first and come across the fundamentals along the way and become an excellent developer that way..However, if you want to learn to develop software as fast as you can without wasting time then the very basic fundamentals should be learned first without frameworks.. More details

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