[austincheney]

I am a JavaScript developer fulltime for more than a decade.

> you have to stand on the shoulders of giants if you want to compete

Hold on there cowboy. We are what we are. Nobody starts out as a rockstar coding ninja. It takes practice. Just take it one step at a time. Solve for problems as you encounter them. The challenge you go through to provide that solution will open your eyes to other potential solutions to other ever challenging problems you never would have seen otherwise.

> Any code you re-invent is code you have to maintain.

If its code that has found its way into your code base you are maintaining it anyways. That is why dependencies are debt. If you have not reviewed the tests and/or validation of those dependencies you are introducing untested code into your application on blind faith.