Should Junior Developers Still Learn JavaScript the Hard Way?

Source: Dev.to

Defining “the hard way”

Not:

• Watching a 6‑hour tutorial at 1.5× speed
• Copy‑pasting code until it works
• Asking AI to “fix this” without reading the output

By “the hard way”, people usually mean:

• Vanilla JavaScript
• No frameworks at first
• Understanding what actually happens under the hood

Why it matters in 2026

With AI copilots and frameworks everywhere, the question is:
Is that still necessary — or just gatekeeping with extra steps?

A junior dev today can:

• Build a React app in an afternoon
• Deploy to the cloud without touching a server
• Generate code faster than they can read it

That’s amazing, but there’s a catch. When something breaks — and it will — the question becomes:

Do you understand JavaScript… or just the framework?

Fundamentals to master

Learning JavaScript fundamentals isn’t about suffering. If you understand:

• Closures
• Scope & hoisting
• this (yes, unfortunately)
• The event loop
• Async behavior beyond “just use async/await”

you stop being surprised by bugs and don’t panic when:

• State updates behave weirdly
• Performance tanks for no obvious reason
• Something works locally but fails in production

You debug instead of guess.

The problem with teaching

The issue isn’t learning JavaScript fundamentals; it’s how we teach them.
Endless for loops and contrived examples don’t help anyone.

let sum = 0;
for (let i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) {
  sum += arr[i];
}

What helps

• Small real‑world projects
• Breaking things on purpose
• Seeing how raw JS powers actual apps

Hard doesn’t mean boring. Yes — but not forever, and not alone.

A good path in 2026

1. Learn core JavaScript concepts.
2. Build small things without frameworks.
3. Then earn the abstractions.

Skipping fundamentals entirely is risky. Balance matters.

Conclusion

JavaScript isn’t the hard part; understanding it is. That understanding pays off every single time:

• When frameworks change
• When AI gets it wrong
• When production is on fire and you’re the one fixing it

So yes — junior developers should still learn JavaScript the hard way.
Just not the stupid way.