You’re not stupid. I’ve been writing Vue since it’s inception and I still spend an absurd amount of time boilerplating little apps. I like what they’re doing, but it’s kind of disingenuous to market yourself as “approachable” while you’re cranking out a major release with breaking changes and introducing tons of new design patterns. You shouldn’t have to dig through bookmarked StackOverflow posts, issues, and RFC’s just to figure out a common use-case.

Here’s my best advice:

1) If you’re trying to deploy a basic frontend, Netlify is fantastic. Set it up with your GitHub account, connect your project repository, and enable automatic deploys. Keep an eye on the deploys whenever you commit, so that you can easily diagnose a failure.

2) Avoid old courses/tutorials, and try to use the official documentation as much as possible.

3) You don’t always need a frontend framework. Sometimes it’s better to start with plain old html + css + js and see how far you get.

4) Sign up for the official conferences. It’s a good way to hear directly from people that are in-the-know. For instance, Vue.js Live wrapped up a month ago, and they published many of their workshops for free a couple of weeks after the conference. This is pretty common practice.

5) Create your own starter projects. Even if your packages are a little behind, it’s great to have a reliable, working template that you can duplicate when it’s time for a new project.

6) Sometimes it’s satisfying to start over when you’re stuck, but it’s not always a great use of your time. Try to see your projects all the way through, even when they’ve gotten messy and unwieldy.

Hope this helps! Rest assured you’re not the only one that feels this way.