Depends . How much tech experience do you have ? <| sep |> Yes I ' ve heard Sun ' s name A LOT on campus what courses does ~~ s ~~ he normally teach ? EDIT Pronouns ! <| sep |> Ah yes , the dignity of giving the company who fired you right before Thanksgiving another good old day of hard , honest work . <| sep |> Frameworks , plugins and libraries are there to help you , but the reason they become frowned upon is because people use them as a one size fits all solution . Personally I hate the restriction that certain frameworks place on you and every time I try to use them I end up pulling them out because I spend so much time trying to work around them . I ' d say if you like a framework , then keep using it , if they increase your productivity then keep your output high . What it sounds like you should be doing is poking around under the hood , learn the quirks and know the how and why . Or for fun try recreating the widgets .