Learning about the front-end can seem like a daunting task these days — especially if you’re a beginner. It’s easy to feel like you have to master a thousand different tools and technologies just to get started. The good news is, this isn’t the case.

If you’re new to front-end development, I suggest staying close to the grain: just use HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Build with them, learn them inside out, experiment with them. These languages have some amazing primitives that we sometimes forget the raw power of.

As your familiarity with these languages improve, you can then add tools and abstractions into the mix when you’ve confirmed they improve your productivity and help you manage complexity.

Thorough experience with the fundamentals will make it easier for you to pick up Sass, JavaScript tooling, build process and the other tools we use to build larger projects these days.

Signed — someone who burns most of their calories at the gym untangling headphones.