After 9+ years of working with Angular, I recently started learning React. Not because I had to. Not because Angular is outdated. But because the tech landscape is evolving faster than ever — and staying curious is no longer optional. We are in the AI era. Tools can generate code in seconds. But here’s a thought: 👉 If we don’t understand the fundamentals of how frontend actually works, how will we validate what AI generates? Frameworks will come and go. Trends will shift. AI will keep getting smarter. But the basics — JavaScript, rendering, state, performance, architecture — those remain your real strength. Learning something new after a decade wasn’t easy. It felt uncomfortable. But that’s exactly where growth happens. To everyone in tech: Don’t rely only on AI. Use it as a tool, not a crutch. Keep learning. Keep exploring. Stay grounded in fundamentals. Because at the end of the day, great engineers don’t just write code — they understand it. #Learning #React #Angular #Frontend #AI #ContinuousLearning #SoftwareEngineering
Coming to react from angular feels little bit messier visually as we see jsx and state and all written in a single file and it looks so bloated.
I think you should look into Ryan Carnito - He gives some good mental model to think about most of these frameworks - What are they, how framework solves "dom updates". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAci3O2j31o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C-y59betmY For me fundamentals are like these stuffs: 1. Implementing State (mostly closure or variables, React heavily uses closures, dunno about Angular) 2. Implementing Reactivity in the library (decides the data flow) 3. Implementing Impurity handling 4. Routing 5. Learning patterns + anti-patterns of the library This is what I can think of now 🤔 .
Your journey from Angular to React underscores the importance of adaptability in tech. Embracing new tools while anchoring in core fundamentals ensures we harness AI ethically and intelligently.
What would you recommend an Angular guy who is starting to lean backend to focus more on learning - express or nest.js?