Introduction to the Course

Get introduced to the course, its prerequisites, and its target audience.

Vue.js

Imagine the digital world as a vast playground of applications, each with its unique features and functionalities. In 2013, Facebook introduced React, a revolutionary concept that ignited a transformation in how we build user interfaces. These component-based UI frameworks allow the developers to build applications as collections of self-contained, reusable components—building blocks that manage their own state, enabling the creation of more interactive interfaces.

The second generation of Google’s Angular framework is based on the component paradigm, and several smaller, lightweight libraries, such as Hyperapp, have cropped up in recent years.

Amid this seemingly ever-growing collection of frameworks and libraries came Vue.js (simply referred to as Vue from here on). Released in 2014, Vue was created by a Google engineer, Evan You, who was inspired to develop it after working with AngularJS. Vue has seen an exponential rise in popularity and is now considered a leading front-end framework and with good reason. It was designed to be flexible and easy to adopt, making it just as easy to integrate into projects and use alongside non-Vue code as it is to build complex client-side applications.

Vue 3

In 2016, Vue 2.0 significantly impacted the front-end development landscape. It brought with it a powerful combination of simplicity and performance, garnering a dedicated community of developers worldwide. Vue 2.0 revolutionized how developers build user interfaces by offering a flexible and intuitive framework. Vue 2.0 provided a solid foundation for creating dynamic and responsive web applications with features like virtual DOMDocument Object Model and reactive data binding. Its gradual adoption approach also made it accessible for both small projects and large-scale applications, allowing developers to seamlessly integrate Vue into their existing projects.

In September 2020, we finally got the official release of Vue 3, which we’d been eagerly awaiting. The biggest change by far was the introduction of the Composition API—a powerful set of utilities for defining Vue components in a whole new way. In addition, the framework received major performance enhancements that increased speed and cut bundle sizes.

This course is designed to thoroughly cover the fundamental concepts of Vue 3, including the basics, reactivity, Composition API, state management, and routing techniques, empowering us to build dynamic and efficient web applications.

Vue 2 vs. Vue 3

Vue 3 introduces significant improvements over Vue 2, including a more efficient reactivity system, the Composition API for modular component logic, enhanced performance with a new virtual DOM, and better TypeScript integration. These advancements make Vue 3 a compelling choice for building modern, scalable, and maintainable web applications.

Why choose Vue?

There are plenty of good reasons to choose Vue.

  • Easy to integrate into an existing site: We can start using Vue on existing websites without having to implement a build step and introduce a new setup and tooling to our workflow. In fact, Vue is the perfect go-to tool for many situations where we’d previously have reached for jQueryjQuery is a fast, concise, and feature-rich JavaScript library designed to simplify and enhance client-side web development.!
  • Component-based architecture: Of course, Vue is also more than capable of building modern single-page applications (SPAs), allowing us to develop our apps as modular, reusable components.

  • Comprehensive ecosystem: Prebuilt components for almost every use we could think of are available from Vue’s large community of developers. On top of that, popular libraries exist to provide standard functionality, such as client-side routing, state management, and server-side rendering! In contrast to React, many of these are also maintained by the official Vue team, where there aren’t always official solutions available.

  • Popular framework: Vue is being used by various businesses, from GitLab to the Chinese giant Alibaba. It’s also been adopted by the PHP framework Laravel as its default library for building client-side apps. It’s safe to say that these organizations consider Vue to be a sensible choice with good future prospects. Its popularity also means getting help with our problems on various support sites and forums is easy.

To summarize, Vue emerges as a flexible solution for our upcoming project, seamlessly integrating with existing websites, featuring a component-based structure for modern applications, providing an extensive ecosystem, and enjoying widespread adoption by many organizations. These attributes make Vue an appealing choice for developers seeking adaptability and strong community backing.

Course overview

This course focuses on the following:

  • Vue.js: The Basics: This chapter provides an introduction to the basic concepts of Vue.js, such as Vue instance, template syntax, interpolations, methods, computed properties, and directives.

  • Components: This chapter discusses general components, custom components, component options, component lifecycle, prop validation, and named and scoped slots.

  • The Composition API: This chapter discusses the setup function, dealing with data using ref() and reactive() functions, computed and watched values, and lifecycle hooks in Vue.

  • Routing: This chapter covers routes, navigation, navigation guards, and a complete example of using routes in Vue.

  • State Management: This chapter provides introduction to state management, state, getters, mutations, and actions in Vuex.

  • Nuxt.js: This chapter covers all the topics related to Nuxt.js, like Nuxt component options, Assets, store, middleware, and, plugins.

Target audience

This course is designed for developers with experience in JavaScript. It’s easy to follow if you’ve already used a component-based JavaScript framework like Angular. However, it’s also suitable for readers without prior experience with such frameworks. The course is aimed at beginners who are eager to pursue a career in front-end development.