Hi people ! Iām a beginner developer that have some experience with python and django, and i was interested on learning Meteor.Iāve done the javascript course of Codecademy and iām reading this book: A Smarter Way to Learn JavaScript by Mark Myers. Are these āskillsā enough to start building something with Meteor or i need to study more Javascript(maybe Jquery) or NodeJs? In the latter case, could you suggest me some resources(more practical ones, like exercises ecc) which i can study to improve my Javascript?
Nope, you can dive right in, although sparing a day (or two) to do some light reading on what nodejs is and how it is different than client side javascript development can help you better grasp the concepts.
Other than that, try to both ask and answer as many questions on both here and on stack overflow to keep your mind engaged. That had worked great for me when I first met Meteor.
Donāt worry and just start writing code. You can learn everything you need in the process.
If I can recommend something, try not to ask yourself too many questions that are based on your experience with Python. If you canāt find something in Javascript, most probably this thing is simply not needed in this environment and thereās an alternative solution that works better for particular cases.
You probably know more javascript than I did when I started. My knowledge on starting was some basic jquery, and I knew enough to get started. Do the tutorial (meteor.com/try), youāll be amazed at what you can accomplish in an hour or two.
As someone who considers themselves to be a fairly new JavaScript developer, Iād say just jump right in. It took me a bit of playing with it but I pushed an app (very simple) in a weekend. Iād definitely recommend completing the TODOS tutorial. It helps a lot!
I think the moment you were able to do hello wold grants you to enter the world of meteor, my motto in lifeā¦ āJump in the Ocean and learn how to swim!ā
Iād suggest starting with vanilla JS for now. The fewer things to learn at first the better, thereās more community support and ES2015 support with the ecmascript package (now included by default) has a lot of the conveniences from CoffeeScript.
Though I wouldnāt worry about it too much and just start coding.
IMO, skip CoffeeScript and any other JavaScript derivatives. Stick with ES6, and keep up with JavaScriptās updates (ES7, etc). It will keep you more future-proofed.
If you like CoffeeScript syntax more, just use it. Learning the most frequently used Coffee features is 5 minutes anyways, with a day or two of getting used to writing it. But as you come from Python, it will be way more natural for you to use than ES6. So it doesnāt make any difference, as long as you learn ES6 way too.
Just remember that when you write an open source project and want some help with it, you will find more help with ES6 than with CoffeeScript.
You may want to check out Jade too, which is similar to CoffeeScript for HTML and which makes your templates twice shorter and easier to read.