[sillysaurus3]

That sounds like the most boring possible way to learn webdev. Unless they're already a programmer, those things just aren't entertaining for most people. Making sure a beginner stays entertained is probably the most important goal, because people who get bored will give up before realizing their full potential.

So if anyone's reading this and feeling bad that they don't feel like doing that, just dive in and do something fun. The longer you spend learning, the more likely you are to pick up all of those important details anyway.

[Daiz]

I'd say there are ways to combine both approaches - develop userscripts. While you can do tricks to use other libraries, simpler userscript development is easiest with just vanilla JS. It's how I got into JS myself - I first fixed up an userscript I was using that no longer worked, and then I used that userscript as a base to start building a more complex thing. Eventually I ended up completely rewriting the thing from scratch (and I did the same for the original userscript I fixed that started it all). I've been actually thinking of giving it another rewrite one of these days, this time opting to build the thing with Browserify...

[k_]

It's still [one of] the best way to acquire solid knowledge of a language (and then its frameworks). I agree that this might not be the funniest nor the quickest way, though.

But it's not that bad when you have someone behind you, helping you when really needed, and showing you what you can achieve afterwards.

Jumping into JQuery, copy/pasting snippets from google and such won't (well, not often anyway) bring novices very far. Plus, they'll have a hard time learning other frameworks if needed (new job, etc.).

[ricardobeat]

That was just a suggestion for the technical path. Motivation is a different exercise, I agree that the best way to learn is to try and build something you find fun/interesting.

[dopamean]

I teach web development and find this statement to be most true. If you cant hold people's attention they wont learn a thing.

[gilrain]

Yep. The grandparent is good advice. This, though, is effective advice.