We, as web developers, are always reminded to "never stop learning." Although lifelong learning is an essential factor in technology, at times, it may feel like one has been caught in a trap. There are newly hatched frameworks, niche tools, and languages, and spending time in chasing them can save you from losing energy in this technology, which never seems to have come into the world - or sometimes worse, they influence the productivity of your work against it.


Here are some technologies that I really regret spending time on. They were not bad ones but in hindsight, they could not be justified as serving me as a developer or they were not really worth the investment for my own personal path.


1. jQuery (in the React Era) Because Everybody Learned It: Everyone used it, and so it seemed to be totally relevant for DOM manipulation.


Why regret it: I had learned jQuery by now; however, by that stages the front end had already changed with React, Vue, and other modern frameworks. Worse, jQuery practices never were too good in translating one to component-based thinking. I just had to unlearn it to build better apps.


Take away: Study foundational JS before learning any old libraries, unless you're maintaining legacy code.


2. Bootstrap (Overlearning It) Why I learned it: wanted to build clea responsive quickly.


Why I regret it: I leaned too much on bo