Simon Willison’s Weblog

How does one decide which Javascript framework (e.g. Node, Backbone, Angular) to use on any given project?

11th March 2014

My answer to How does one decide which Javascript framework (e.g. Node, Backbone, Angular) to use on any given project? on Quora

If you are just learning JavaScript, I suggest trying to work without any frameworks or libraries at all. Starting with something like Angular will make it much harder for you to learn the core language and browser APIs.

Once you’ve worked with raw JavaScript for a while, it’s worth starting to learn jQuery—it’s the basis of most of the popular JavaScript frameworks out there and understanding how it works will help reinforce a bunch of core JavaScript concepts.

If your priority is learning though, it’s a good idea to start without jQuery. There are a surprising number of JavaScript developers out there who only really know how to program JavaScript using jQuery.