A learning space for people who hate the complexity of modern web development

I started learning to code during this magical time when much of what jQuery had pioneered had just been implemented natively in browsers under ES5.

Learning to code wasn’t easy, but the barriers to entry were low. You could just open a text editor, open a browser, and get to work.

Fast forward just a few years, and the whole landscape had changed.

Libraries and frameworks dominated the market. Build tools where treated as a necessity. Nearly every tutorial started with, “just open up the command line and…” or, “just install Angular/Vue/React and…”.

What used to be simple and fun suddenly felt complicated and over-engineered.

A big part of why I started teaching vanilla JS—writing this newsletter, speaking at conferences, and creating courses and workshops—was to show people that you can still build great web experiences without a lot of tools, and that the process can be easier and better than a more complex workflow.

One of the things I discovered along the way is that there are a lot of people who feel the same way I do, and long for a simpler, more resilient web experience.

I’m working on something new: the Lean Web Club.

It’s a learning space for people who hate the complexity of modern web development. When you join, you get unlimited access to courses and tutorials, projects, learning paths, live events, a curated resource library, and a vibrant developer community.

You can do things like…

• Watch or read a few short tutorials on a topic you’re struggling with or need a quick reference for (like how to sanitize API data, or detect clicks outside of an element).
• Find fun projects to work on, with a starting template, links to relevant tutorials, and a walk-through of my approach.
• Attend online events like open Q&As, live-coding sessions, and interviews with cool people.
• Follow learning paths, collections of tutorials, projects, and events focused on a narrow topic (like how to build a web app or build an offline site).
• Find recommended tools, libraries, and code snippets to help you build faster and more resilient web experiences.

If that sounds interesting, you can learn more at LeanWebClub.com.