Confused about all of the different JavaScript technologies available

[Cromulent]

I've always done server-side programming in Python and have never really done much on the client side, so my JavaScript knowledge is abysmal. I want to fix that, but I'm perplexed.

I want to be able to do the client side and the server side all in JavaScript, so I don't need to worry about changing language depending on what side of things I am working on. I know enough to know that I need to use Node.js on the server side, but there is a whole host of technologies available which I find quite confusing.

Bower, Grunt, Gulp, Webpack, React, Express, Angular, Backbone, jQuery, Underscore etc. There are far too many to list, and I have no idea what I should start off with.

Can anyone recommend a technology stack that works for both server and client side programming, please? I'd also like to make sure I am using Docker for CI/CD and of course I'll be using Git and Gitlab for source code control.

I'd like to use something that makes use of the most up-to-date web technologies available. I'm not interested in supporting older browser versions. I'll only be supporting the absolute latest browsers, so I'm not worried about things not working in Internet Explorer for instance.

 

[Cromulent]

I'm going to try out a front-end framework first I think. This might sound backwards, but I'm used to doing web development in Python using the Django web framework so by using a front-end only JavaScript framework I can get up to speed with JavaScript much quicker. Backbone.js looks like an interesting one to start off with. It might help me make nicer interfaces in my Django apps.

 

[Cromulent]

Backbone is old. The author recommended picking up something like Vue.js, Google's Angular, or Facebook's React frameworks instead - and I agree. I used Backbone for years, it was pretty amazing when it came out, but now the three I just listed really do supersede it in nearly every way.

I recommend trying Vue.js first. It has the least amount of configuration required to get running and, in my opinion, has the cleanest API, templating of the three.

Thanks. I'll look into Vue.js. It sounds like an interesting option.

Personally I am loving Angular(6, soon to be 7) at the moment, currently writing a system in it. However its just for the UI. Back end is .net core web api and sql server.

I've wanted to get into ASP.NET Core now that it is cross-platform as I do most of my development on Linux. I'll also look into Angular.