Resourcing for Success

The Ideal Skillset

Astro, the Progressive App framework, uses modern development tools, new programming language features, and intermediate development concepts. This means that Astro was developed with an intermediate Web Engineer in mind. Don’t worry, if you don’t have a few of the requirements below, chances are you can quickly acquire the skills to feel comfortable building an Astro app (we have some recommended 3rd-party courses below to get you started). However, if you find yourself answering "no" to more than one or two requirements below, it may mean you’ll have a difficult time working with Astro.

Required Experience	What is the ideal hands-on experience that an Astro developer requires?
Software Development	4+ years professional web development experience. Experience using MVC frameworks such as Rails, Django, Angular, Ember, Backbone or Spring. Experience writing application or backend code (as compared to static website code). Have used any JavaScript templating language. Familiar with JavaScript Promises (or at least know what they are).
Security	An understanding of XSS is necessary. Can implement & understand basic authentication in an app.
Performance	Have used Chrome’s web developer tools (the Network, Timeline and Profiles tabs) to debug a slow performing website. Can diagnose and fix slow performing JavaScript or HTML rendering. Familiarity with HTML best practices for web performance.
Technology	You use build systems such as webpack, grunt, or gulp.js to automate and speed up your development. Knowledge of a source control system, preferably a DVCS (Git, Mercurial, etc.). An understanding of Node.js and npm.
Methodology	You adhere to code styling to ensure your code structure is standardized.

Recommended 3rd-party Lessons

Below are a few online videos and 3rd-party course material to help get you started with the prerequisites you need to know in order to develop with Astro. The material below is designed to introduce you to these concepts, but they might not be enough for you to fully grok the material. You may need to do some further research on your own.

Recommended Learning Resource	Course Format
The MVC Pattern Explained.	📹 Video
Intro to JavaScript ES6 (and Promises).	🎓 Online course
Another JavaScript ES6 course	🎓 Online course
Using Chrome to Inspect Slow Websites.	📹 Video
Web Performance Tooling with Chrome	📹 Video
Intro to Grunt	📹 Video
HTML5, DOM and CSS Best Practices	📹 Video
Intermediate JavaScript (Closures, Prototypes)	🎓 Online course