Backtracking to go forward

As stated in previous entries, I've decided to focus on JavaScript so I have a more complete understanding of what I'm doing in React. For this, I've chosen Andrei Neagoie's "Advanced JavaScript Concepts," which I'm finding to be an excellent resource so far. In the 25 hours this course spans, there will be a lot of material covered, which is great. He goes at a very nice pace where I'm never feeling overwhelmed by the content. At this point, I'm still revisiting the basics of JavaScript, which I thought was going to be sleep-worthy, when in actuality I've learned quite a bit. Yesterday, I finished the first 2 sections before realizing there were 2 sections at the end serving as a summary from basic to intermediate level JS.

I've just completed the basic section, and like I said, I learned much more than I thought I would. It has been a while now since I focused specifically on JavaScript, and this section reminded me of a lot of concepts that had been pushed towards the back of my noggin. He introduced some simple topics like types of variables and operators, but also went into arrays, objects and methods, which he presented really well. Now, I'm hoping to finish the intermediate section before the end of the night before I get back to the meat of the course. These sections are going to be a great primer for the rest of the course, though.

I've been thinking about a conversation I had with a guy who develops for AWS, and he pointed me towards some alternative resources. I'm a big fan of Udemy; they've facilitated a huge advancement in my knowledge base for a fraction of the price of some resources. There are, however, better resources out there that don't come with a ridiculous price tag. The two sites that he pointed me towards were Egghead.io and Frontend Masters. After reviewing their courses, I wasn't impressed with the amount of material provided by Egghead and what they do have still seems a bit advanced and specific for what I'm looking for. However, Frontend Masters has a pretty massive library of material that is structured in a really nice way. You can follow a path that takes you from beginner to advanced or you can follow paths specific to a certain technology, like JavaScript or React. Both of these sites have the best minds in the business teaching the classes, so I trust the material is high quality. I didn't look at the price for Egghead, but Frontend Masters is $39 a month, which really isn't that bad. So, after I finish this course and then loop back to finish Neil Cummings' "Build an app with React, Redux, and Firestore from scratch," I'll be signing up for Frontend Masters to take my skills to the next level. I think this is going to be an incredibly smart move that should pay off quickly.

Until tomorrow!