Reviewing the TypeScript Handbook was very educational, even if I didn't understand all of it. It was enough to make me feel confident I have what I need to get more out of revisiting Angular web framework. When I tried to learn Angular the first time, I only had a basic grasp of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Because of this weak foundation with weak supports, I didn't really know enough to put Angular to work. I just ran through the tutorial and didn't do much with it. Over the past few weeks, I've been patching up holes in my knowledge of web development, and I hope to have better results if I visit Angular again. It's no guarantee of success, and there's a good chance I'd only learn enough to realize I need to revisit the other topics like CSS and JavaScript again. But even in that case I'd learn more than I know today, and that is itself a win.

So given what I've learned recently, here is how I intend to tackle my second round of learning Angular:

  1. Read through Angular introduction again.

  2. Just skim instructions for the StackBlitz-based shopping cart demo without repeating hands-on activity. I like the idea of StackBlitz but its web-based development environment was different enough from a local development environment that I've decided I prefer to skip it in favor of practicing local development.

  3. Hands-on follow through the "Tour of Heroes" tutorial for the second time.

After finishing "Tour of Heroes" again, put my recent learning to work enhancing it:

  1. The "Tour of Heroes" tutorial was focused on Angular application framework mechanics, so the visual HTML and CSS is very plain. Put my recent HTML and CSS learning to work and spiff up that site. Including a mobile-friendly layout via media queries.

  2. The "Tour of Heroes" tutorial used a small class as a local proxy substitution for server-side database backend, storing its data in memory using JavaScript collection classes. Remove that proxy and migrate it to run on a Node.js server.

  3. Upgrade backend interface code to a more robust web API implemented using Express.

  4. Upgrade backend store to a MongoDB instance instead of in-memory JavaScript objects.

If I get this far, I would have practiced the entire MEAN stack. However, the MongoDB side would be quite lightweight given the limited demands of "Tour of Heroes". Fortunately, in the MongoDB University course, we were given several practice databases of nontrivial size. I could build an Angular web app on top of one of those databases.

And if I'm successful with that, I would then have enough skill to tackle a MEAN stack project from scratch.

Tha's quite a plan with many steps! I'll likely deviate from this plan as I hit various roadblocks and work to resolve them, and it'll take at least several weeks. But it feels exciting to have a longer-term plan. But first, a look at the Angular framework to see how it has changed since my first visit.