Backbone and Angular overkill for the advanced front end projects?

I managed to solve the intermediate projects(wikipedia viewer etc) and the calculator using vanilla Javascript and jQuery. I am proficient with Backbone JS and not sure if I should use Backbone for the pomodoro clock, simon game etc. I somehow feel all these projects can be accomplished with plain JS and jQuery.

Any thoughts on this?

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If this were a “real” project - as in, you had to work within a budget, you had time constraints, and you had to coordinate with a team - I would say it’s clearly overkill. These projects can absolutely be completed with minimal dependencies. However, these projects are about learning through doing, so if you want to learn, or get better with, Angular and Backbone, then by all means do it.

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Personally I would say spend more time just familiarizing yourself with plain javascript (Jquery is fine as well). Using a framework will make you initially less productive, and you will end up spending more time learning the framework and less time just getting comfortable with the fundamentals. Once you finish front-end you’ll have a chance to learn a popular front-end framework (react) as part of the data vis certification. Just my personal opinion, that being said, if you are just really excited about backbone and angular, go for it, software development is supposed to be fun!

Thanks @PortableStick and @twmilli for your helpful replies. I think I will just stick with plain JS and solidify my understanding of the Object Oriented concepts. I will eventually be using React for the data visualization track so it makes sense to just stick with plain JS for now.

My recommendation would be to do some of them twice. Do them once using vanilla JavaScript and then the second time using backbone. Then when you want to show a portfolio to potential employers, you will be able to show the breadth and depth of your skill set by showing both.