I honestly know almost nothing from current and well-known front-end technologies (I know, shame on me). Long time ago, I come up with a short list of web technologies that I would like to get to know at some point in my head:

• React

• Node

• Angular

• Typescript

• GraphQL

Why? I have read/heard/watched someone have talked about it. So, I considered them to be well established enterprise technologies nowadays (I might be wrong). To be fair, I have build toolkits and even fix couple of css bugs on Node and React projects. However, we both know this doesn’t mean I know those things. It is just something you have to do when you are a developer, right? Fix code even if you know just the basics, but that is another topic.

I finally had the chance to take some courses on those topics, which I am very happy for! But, the goal of this post is not to brag about my free time (in fact, there is nothing to brag about). By luck (I will probably write the real reason on another post) I had access to Pluralsight and its large amount of courses.

Additionally, I discovered I wasn’t too bad at Javascript, CSS, and HTML (a relief since I am a web developer!) So, I felt confident to start watching those topics. I found Pluralsight has an initial course in all paths (groups of courses for a topic) that stated “The Big Picture” in the title.

This was the aha moment for me. My wish list of those technologies came to my mind right after looking at React: The Big Picture course. So, I am here to talk about why I find those “Big Picture” courses useful and for whom.

First, I find those courses a quick and, in some cases, good way to know about a topic (I say in some cases, because I didn’t like the instructors of the GraphQL and Node courses). I do recommend to check those out if you are like me and know nothing about some technology. Perhaps, blockchain, machine learning or data science? Their length is short (around 1 hour per course) which is something manageable, if you want to know just the basics of something.

Second, those courses are presented assuming you don’t know the topic. I think this is specially useful for a business decision maker that don’t have necessarily a technical background. Or if you are like me, who doesn’t care if one has to learn how to read again. I think it is just easier to understand something if you don’t start with a “I know all” mentality.

So, I know Pluralsight is not free, but if you have the chance and money to access the platform. I find it is a good way to start on a topic with their “Big Picture” courses. In my case, I would like to explore other learning platforms instead of being all-in with them and I definitely would like to continue learning JavaScript and React. I honestly think developers should try to get a sense of other technologies. But I also really like the idea to start learning that library first.

Thanks for reading.

PS: What do you think about my wish list of technologies? Too old for 2021? Still relevant? What would you recommend for someone who wants to start learning the front-end?