spelt is better for beginners bold take
this is a bold take right here okay this
is a bold take because you know what you
know because when I when I hear that you
know what I think what is HDMX good for
if spelt is for beginners is HDMX for
Big Brain high IQ end of the uh IQ chart
or is it even worse is it just for Mid
wits am I A midwit htx is for Boomers
and Senior Engineers senior Engineers as
in like really old Engineers I get okay
come on enough with the Boomer talk okay
I'm only 37 okay I'm not a Boomer yet
your definition of a boomer hurts my
Boomer feelings okay hi I'm Cameron and
welcome to my Tad talk I'm here to shout
my opinion about frontend Frameworks
into the endless void of hot takes and
terrible opinions I love the starting of
this this is great Cameron you have my
respect already I firmly believe that
anyone learning front-end web
development should start with spelt
rather than
react I always knew I liked Cameron I
could always tell I could tell from the
beginning beginning of this article that
I liked Cameron I could just I could
feel it in my bones okay I could feel it
deep down what is spelt the word spelt
is from French okay I don't like Cameron
I thought I liked Cameron but now I
don't like Cameron uh spelt meaning slim
slender which is a perfect description
for a framework that prized itself on
Minimalist design spelt was first
released in 2016 and recently updated to
version 4 in June of this year I first
discover spelt around a month ago after
seeing it featured on a YouTube video by
the prime J let's go oh gosh pre-read
pre-at let's go let's go oh yes yes oh I
knew I liked Cameron let's go Cameron my
first application in spelt was a website
that replays a competitive programming
competition Leaderboard on ctis on the
same day that I started that project I
also finished it nice that was a long
ass day was it like a 37h hour day
usings felt that day made me feel like a
superhero I had informed my competition
team about the tool I was going to make
for us and I was able to release it to
them on the same day something I don't
think would have been possible if I
started out learning a framework like
react okay fair I think that's actually
a fair take my experience with react
let's go man this okay clearly clearly
Cameron Cameron you wrote this just for
me to you wrote this for me to read I
could tell I could tell you little you
dirty dog I can just feel it my first
experience with front in development was
using react for my University's
competitive programming Club website
nice job let's see it let's check it out
I did competitive programming by the way
it's one of the best things you can do
if you haven't done competitive
programming honestly you are missing out
heavily competitive programming is a
Fant fantastic thing to do at least once
in your life got regionals first place
Regional ACM didn't qualify for worlds
though got pretty dang far though huge
fan of that type of stuff anyways
jumping into the code base was quite the
cold shower when oh cold showers are
good for you are you saying it's
positive for you you're having a nice
adrenal response in a healthy way when
searching for help on the react website
you can find some pretty good tutorials
to help you learn after a week you
should have a firm grasp on most the
concepts that react offers State
Management still quite tricky sure
react's fundamentals aren't impossible
but its approach to building UI Dev at
significantly from traditional
development this is something I feel
like spelt stays close to okay okay I
like this I like this What's the
Difference Maker there are two points I
would like to raise on what makes felt
so much better for beginners I would say
that if you can finish an entire project
in a singular day maybe it's not better
for beginners maybe it's just better
I've always enjoyed spelt oh my gosh the
way spelt has structured their tutorial
website and documentation is top TI you
also get hit if you go through the felt
documentation or the the tutorial one of
the first things you get hit with is
quite the classic it's beautiful it's
almost like a layoff for Le code nice
nice yeah it's it's great welcome to
felt all this kind of stuff you get to
go through everything sure react also
has a tutorial on their website in no
way is that tutorial better than spelts
react has structured their tutorial
through documentation rather than
interactive layout like spel yeah I
think go did go went with this approach
right your little learn go where you're
doing these small interactive websites I
think this makes a huge difference it
makes a huge difference to have
interactive tutorials I mean for me at
at my stage in life all I want to see is
an example and like a one sentence
describing the problem that it solves
like that's what I want to see maybe
that's in incorrect but I often don't
want to have to read the entire
documentation just to understand how to
use something right I just need I just
need the 0 to 60 really quick move on
with my life this may be a personal
preference but when I was learning react
I would have loved something like spelts
tutorial where every concept could be
treated like a leak code problem that I
needed to solve it's just how my brain
works I believe this style of learning
is the most productive when it comes to
teaching something new in programming
actually I I would agree with this take
doing it with your hands rather than
reading is huge reading through docs and
seeing examples and stuff like that is
really nice after you have a concept
right like after you know what you're
doing then reading through stuff is like
it it it just like you can gain so much
understanding but just cold like just
cold water reading through something I
feel like it's like it's it's difficult
doing it with the hands is huge
absolutely practice is always greater
than theory on the initial learn you
need the theory though you need the the
theory ah I can't get over the
Simplicity of this framework everything
just makes sense you want to make a
component that adds two numbers together
script A B input a b bind value let's go
a plus b boom there it is now switch to
react export default oh default
oh I can't tell if I like default or or
not every time I say I hate default I
think I actually like default and then I
just never know all I know is that
export default is the reason why things
feel like they can't never played
together nicely anyways okay you got to
use a bunch of States uh there we go set
Target there we go we got to set Target
to this there we go parse in plus parse
int plus I don't know about this parse
int business you use I don't know about
this this whole parse in business is
that because you're using target. value
and it's not it's like a oh no it's type
number so it should be a number I'm not
really sure about that parent you might
have acally made it a little bit too
complicated there your explicit returns
kind of person so it makes sense I am an
explicit returns kind of person my
brother and sister in Christ there is no
debate from someone who used to be a
react Fanboy to the felt code is easier
to read more enjoyable to write simple
agreed
absolutely agreed to this statement as a
beginner starting out with react my
first thoughts when reading code were
what I think the thing that makes react
so hard often is that I mean whenever
like whenever I read tutorials
everything's really nicely aligned and
it's really really nice and easy but
when I read actual code that somebody
has written it's not by someone who's
like a react perfect Oran organizer of
code and life and logic instead it's 400
lines of use effect and other crap that
go into it and you're just like what am
I reading I have to like I have to learn
the universe before I can learn what's
happening here it's very very difficult
Cameron I'm taking this I'm taking it
it's mine open source open
source I just open sourced your
article open source that there you go I
gave you a little you got you got that
you got that that all right let's keep
on going sure at times verbosity is
needed no not you Java I have three
years of pain with Java I have quite a
few years of pain with Java I understand
it when learning something like front
end for the first time the verbosity can
be overwhelming at times and that's the
last thing you want when trying
something new fair I mean there's a lot
of complication whenever you're doing
any of these things the tool chain is
such a huge pain in the butt when it
comes to working with the front end you
know when you when you don't even have a
concept of what typescript is let alone
that typescript is a superet of
JavaScript that has to be compiled down
and that some of your types actually
have you result in real code and and you
know like all the things that go into it
and then you have to know like that all
comes together and then that all gets
loaded onto a website then something has
to transfer down the scripts like the
amount of stuff you have to know when
running it's a lot and people often
forget how much knowledge you have to
have and I always say that I feel so bad
for people learning to program today cuz
when I learned a program I had to launch
net beans write a program and press play
like that's it it you opened up a
directory you created a Java file and
that's like it that is all there was to
it now it's like you have to know so
much before you actually get to the
point of understanding anything that's
happening it's wild oh God Grandpa
telling War Stories again I think you
just forget how simple life was right
cuz like needing to know about HTTP it's
a lot whatever From The Trenches uh I've
since gone on to rewrite this website in
felt and I love it as a beginner being
able to learn even more about this
framework has been exhilarating for me
some of you argue that spelt has a
smaller community and smaller job market
to that I argue not everything you'll
learn will help you get a job and the
community is ever growing along with the
ecosystem you will learn a lot more
about how things work just in basic
JavaScript CSS and and and the htmls
you'll learn a lot more so this is a
good point be fun and learn spelt to
help you understand the basics of front
end development with components and
reactivity spelt has a lot going for it
and a proud adopter I'm excited for the
future spelt this was a good enough
article my boy Cameron you got the
follow I'm number 11 thank you for such
a wonderful article this was really good
this is actually a really it's a really
good article and I hope that people take
a moment to check out felt especially if
you're new cuz I know there's a lot of
you that are super new that just you're
just trying to figure out life take a
check I mean you know me I'm going to
I'm going to always be super into HDMX
but you guys don't have to be you guys
can check out spelt you can like it you
can enjoy yourself should be a good time
the
name spelen