dnnrly

What have people been playing with this year? What's the best? Where are the warts? What should I be using if I want to stay in my gopher shaped comfort zone?

I've been a backend/systems developer for a long time now. Plenty of C++ with template magic, J2EE, implementing REST APIs in Spring with complex integration to external components. I'm definitely not a novice programmer.

But every time I start to explore web development I get lost in the mass of frameworks and opinions or I'm presented with a bunch of high SEO articles trying to tell me what HTML stands for.

Can anyone suggest where I can get started as an experienced developer? For example, stuff like setting up a NodeJS dev environment and dependency management properly.

I recently spent some time visiting friends in France with my family. On our return, me and my wife spent some time seriously discussing whether or not we can move out there.

So some background - I'm a polyglot developer in Financial Services with 2 young children (<5 years old). Oh and I'm British, voted against Brexit and not prepared to be a victim of the upcoming car crash for our economy. I read French and speak it conversationally but would definitely need some lessons to bring me up to business standards.

Can anyone recommend websites or other resources where I can find jobs out there? Any other tips you could give me?