
A list of front end development resources - gphreak
https://gist.github.com/dypsilon/5819504
======
simfoo
Seeing this mess again tells me that there's something fundamentally wrong
with the web or at least with the standardized technologies that are supposed
to solve the problem of frontend development (namely HTML, CSS and JS).

I think the web really needs a fresh start before I would even consider
becoming a web developer (I'm a CS student atm)

~~~
Hoffenheimer
You don't actually mention anything that's wrong with any of the libraries.
Most of them seem well written. So why would the web need a fresh start?

~~~
andrewflnr
It's not so much the libraries themselves as the very need for all of them.
I'm a fairly new front-end developer (for anything complicated, that is), and
the browser as a platform can't help but feel like what it is, some good ideas
with a lot of hacks and inconsistent philosophies accreted over time. It's a
pain in the butt, even something like a two-column layout without tables. And
that's just to get it working in one browser. Then you try your page in
Firefox, and maybe it breaks in some obscure way. That's when you start
breaking out the libraries, like bootstrap.

Right now, web is the best place for my app to be (assuming I can figure out
offline support), but I tear my hair out every time I run into one of these
issues. Just the other day I had some bizarre issue where offsetBottom and
offsetTop + height were returning contradictory values, or something like
that. And that was with jquery helping me. The web platform is cool for what
it enables, but stinks for what it makes you do to get there.

~~~
geuis
What you are saying is that you are a fairly new frontend developer. Of course
that list is daunting. I've been doing this stuff for years and there are
projects on that list that I haven't even heard of, and one of my projects
(Helium) is on the list!

The reason there are so many solutions to problems is that there are lots and
lots of problems. The common stuff we all need is put into one library (eg
jQuery). Some types if applications need frameworks so we get Backbone,
Angular, or Ember. There's a thousand other types of micro issues that are
common enough to need small, reusable solutions.

Combine all of that with hundreds of thousands of inherently creative and
inventive people and we end up with multiple solutions to the same problems.
Eventually we coalesce around a few of the best tools and move on to new
problems.

Just pick what you need to get a job done and don't worry about trying to
learn everything.

~~~
andrewflnr
What I need to get the job done? I can't even find a library to do 2-way CSS
style binding. I would have thought that was obvious, but it looks like I'll
have to do it myself. To get the experience I want I might need to do a bunch
of other stuff myself too.

I understand the forces that produce multiple solutions to problems. Maybe OP
was wrong about that being evidence of a deeper problem. But a lot of the
problems are deficiencies in the underlying platform. That's the real problem
IMO.

------
ldng
Well it is a nice list but, it's a list, again.

By that I mean you either find compilation list like that or full stack
framework but what a would personally find more useful would sets of cohesive
tools, end-to-end.

Sure there are boilerplates out there but what I frustrating is that you
hardly find "full stack" one. For instance what about a boilerplate for django
+ django-rest-framework + backbone.js + marionette + i18n tools for backend
and frontend + manage.py-grunt.js integration + optimisation tools for css and
images + ....

Yes, there are endless possibilities, the more the reason to find more of
those out there don't you think ? Maybe it's me but I feel like there is
either something missing, too much choice or both. I18N being often the most
neglected (granted, it's harder)

What do HNers feel about that ?

~~~
alok-g
Web development newbie here: I seriously used to think that such a thing would
already exist, a thing like Visual Studio that included all the guts out of
the box, and including back end in addition to the front end.

~~~
jaredsohn
Meteor (and similar) may be the closest to this right now. With Meteor, your
frontend and backend code and potentially your database can all use JavaScript
and be in the same codebase, deployment in at least simpler scenarios is very
easy, and modules exist to integrate other libraries with the framework.

~~~
alok-g
Thanks. I had discovered Meteor only recently (being a web development
newbie).

What other libraries would you recommend to have everything required for
making a basic web application. The end-result should include a responsive
front-end, user authentication and security, reports, charts and
visualizations, forms, blog, payments, and finally an ability to integrate
pre-existing Java code in the back end. Apologies if something I am saying is
not making sense.

~~~
nitrogen
It almost sounds like you want a CMS, like Drupal or Joomla.

~~~
alok-g
Thanks. Just looked over their websites. The learning curve is still a bit too
high. I discovered Caspio [1] that seems to be the most like what I am
imagining. Microsoft's Lightswitch also looked promising but again did not
seem to have all needed parts.

[1] [http://www.caspio.com/](http://www.caspio.com/)

------
dypsilon
I moved the list to

[https://github.com/dypsilon/frontend-dev-
bookmarks](https://github.com/dypsilon/frontend-dev-bookmarks)

please update your bookmarks. Pull requests are welcome.

~~~
amorphid
Thanks for compiling this list. It's quite fabulous!

------
citricsquid
Another excellent development resource list is pineapple.io:
[http://pineapple.io/](http://pineapple.io/)

~~~
vinceguidry
I don't like that site, the information density is too low. The gist has one
resource per line, much more useful.

~~~
TallboyOne
I'm sorry you don't like it. But I assure you there are hidden gems on my site
that you won't find in the gist (even though it's an absolutely fantastic list
- great work dypsilon).

~~~
vinceguidry
Hidden? Isn't it your job as curator to make them not hidden?

~~~
TallboyOne
I don't know what planet you live on. That's like saying stack overflow is in
charge of making sure every excellent question/post is seen, or reddit, or
hacker news...

My job is to develop features that facilitate people finding exactly what
they're looking for, and ideally things they aren't looking for and don't even
know exist. That's a difficult challenge though, while still retaining
engagement features like comments to discuss resources, proper categorization
of favorites, etc. I started a wiki to help with this but it's only maybe 25%
complete. There are plenty of other ways on the site to help with that though.

~~~
vinceguidry
> I don't know what planet you live on. That's like saying stack overflow is
> in charge of making sure every excellent question/post is seen, or reddit,
> or hacker news...

Well, they do. Reddit and HN has their ranking system, Stack Overflow has
single-handedly made Google useful for fixing tech problems. Not really sure
what planet you're living on if you don't think curation is important. Your
site is too small for there to be a critical mass of votes to make it useful,
and it will never get big enough for it to be useful if people don't have a
compelling reason to visit.

------
awjr
Seriously awesome list. Book marked and sent to friends/people I work with.

In a way shame this hit HN on a Saturday, this is one of those lists people
need to find when sitting at their desk.

~~~
dakrisht
Some of us are sitting at our desks 24/7 :)

I've been all over the animation section. Great stuff in there. The whole list
is phenomenal.

------
darrellsilver
This is a great list! To teach front-end web development at
[http://www.thinkful.com/](http://www.thinkful.com/) we also sometimes use
[http://prework.flatironschool.com/](http://prework.flatironschool.com/)

------
Nekorosu
The list is too massive and lacks projects' details to be useful.

I'd better use github's search.

~~~
hdra
Agreed. There are way too many items on the list. This way, it is barely
anymore useful than a google search for these tools.

~~~
andrewflnr
Lists are useful because sometimes you don't know what to google, especially
if you hadn't really noticed a problem enough to think that someone else might
have already solved it for you.

------
dfischer
I've been building a list of front-end development best practices at
[http://www.betterfrontend.com](http://www.betterfrontend.com) \- it
definitely needs to be updated though. I haven't had a change to work on it
for almost a year. Would love to get something going with a few devs if
they're interested.

------
mundizzle
similar to this list... [https://github.com/codylindley/frontend-
tools](https://github.com/codylindley/frontend-tools)

~~~
nirvanatikku
not nearly as badass as OP's list

------
IbJacked
Nice collection. Enough stuff to wander through and be certain I'll find
something of interest, or discover something I was previously unaware of
altogether.

------
jsilva5
Does anyone know about a backend development resources list?

~~~
andrewflnr
That would pretty much have to contain every programming tool ever written. On
the backend you can do whatever you want as long as it can accept TCP
connections.

~~~
dmoney
I think lists of back-end development resources in specific languages could
still be useful (and probably already exist in myriad forms).

------
porker
The trouble with managing a list like this is that it's not exactly easy to
update/correct? It's always owned by one person, and errors (like Foundation 3
being mentioned) aren't easy to correct - or to expand and add new items to.

Great resource, but wouldn't a collaborative wiki be easier - or are such
lists maintained for the original author's reputation not to become a fount of
collective knowledge?

~~~
Roonerelli
perhaps if the OP is reading, he could move it to a Github project and take
pull requests

~~~
gphreak
This is not my work, I tried contacting dypsilon but couldn't find contact
details to let him know he should stop by here.

EDIT: found him on twitter and contacted him

~~~
dypsilon
Thanks, I'll move it to a github repo asap.

------
jenius
From the author of [http://roots.cx](http://roots.cx), much love and thanks
for including us! We're working super hard on pushing roots further than we've
seen any other static site compiler go, so if you are into static sites we'd
love to talk : )

~~~
dypsilon
Hi, thank you for making roots available for us.

------
xixixao
Mimosa is missing from workflow.
[http://http://mimosajs.com/](http://http://mimosajs.com/)

------
pardner
That is, in fact, one badass list. Nice work, great resource.

------
Bjartr
For the sake of completeness, it may be worth mentioning the Google Web
Toolkit.

------
geuis
Oh thanks buddy! Glad to see my Helium-css project mentioned!

~~~
dypsilon
Thank you for building it!

------
_Caspian
Small editorial detail, intuit.css should be inuit.css.

Otherwise good list :)

~~~
Uperte
Also, Yeoman is mentioned twice under Workflow.

------
octy86
Should be bookmarked as startpage :) T-H-A-N-K-S

------
h0w412d
Not enough links.

------
dakrisht
Good lord, what a list. Thanks for this one.

------
johnbellone
Amazing list, I can digest it this weekend.

------
cjdulberger
This is why I love HN. Great list!

------
bharathwaaj
Fantastic compilation. Thank you!

------
woah
This is truly an excellent list

------
danenania
This is beautiful. Thank you!

------
orenbarzilai
Great list! Thanks

