I recently joined the Web Dev Office Hours meetup at the Rustic Couch in Duluth. In January Paul and Eugene did an excellent job demostrating how to implement a simple Angular 2 application. In two hours, Paul developed an app from scratch without downloading a git repo. Eugene provided background information while Eugene coded the app.
Currently, the meet up is twice a month with a beginner session alternating with an advanced meeting. At the leaders' request, I am sharing learning resources I use.
Books and Websites
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JavaScript Absolute Beginner's Guide
by Kirupa Chinnathambi
This book is a great introdution to JavaScript. It is written in an easy to understand, casual style. Plus it is available from the Gwinnett library.
- kirupa.com I also like his blog. I referenced the article Handling Events for Many Elements when working on a DOM manipulation project.
-
Eloquent JavaScript by Marijn Haverbeke
This textbook describes javascript in depth covering advanced topics including modules, DOM, HTTP requests and responses. Working through the exercises gave me a solid JS foundation. I felt some of the sections needed additional information. I consulted other resources when the book was unclear.
Conferences
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Atlanta Code Camp
This confererence focuses on Microsoft technologies. However with Angular building on TypeScript and the use of VSCode for a variety projects, the line between platforms is blurring. At $10 including lunch, the conference is a bargin.
There were beginner and intermediate sessions, including professional development disscussion applicable to all. I found Jeremy Likness's Angular sessions and "Getting to the next level - from Junior Developer to Architect or Director " by John Mann useful.
This conference was held on a Saturday in October at the old Southern Poly campus of KSU.
Connect.TechThis 3 day high-energy workshops and conference covered current trends in mobile development, front-end web design, Angular, React, PHP, and more. My favorite sessions were "Getting More Out of Git" by Jordan Kasper, "Engaging Engineering Teams in Design" by Josh Teague and Stephanie Brubaker, and "You Too Can Build a Bot: Programming Bots in Node.JS For Beginners" by Anthony Jesmok.
I was lucky to be awarded a Women Who Code scholarship to attend this event. As a bonus, there was great swag. It was held Thursday-Saturday in October at the Cobb Galleria.
PluralSight Courses
One of the perks of the Atlanta Code Camp was a one month trial subscription to PluralSight. During the trial, I completed Scott Allen's AngularJS: Get Started course.
Since I enjoyed this course, I purchased a yearly membership. The currated courses are kept current and take you step-by-step through a topic. Repetition reinforces key points.
All the classes I have seen are excellent. These include the following:
- Scott Allen's Angular 1 Courses
- Angular 2: Getting Started by Deborah Kurata
- Visual Studio Code by John Papa
