How to become a Web Developer

Let's discover the simplest and most effective path to becoming a web developer who can solve any programming task.

So you are interested in web development? First, let's differentiate between web developer and a web designer.

A web designer is a person in charge of the visual aspect and layout of the website.

On the other hand, the web developer takes that design and vision from a static design to a fully functioning website that is live and accessible to the world.

What type of developer do you want to become? Do you want to learn front-end, back end or both?

What is Front-End development?

The user interface of a website is called a Front-End. Developers who build that are called front-end developers. Front-end developers write code, along with ensuring a seamless user experience.

A front-end developer is responsible for the look, feel and ultimately the user interface and user experience of the website.

Front-End Technologies

Front-end technologies include HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. You will also learn tons about responsive design along with typography, layouts, grid system, and single page applications.

HTML & CSS

Start with learning HTML & CSS first. HTML is a markup language, not a programming language, that helps layout the structure of a website.

After HTML, CSS is the next skill you should learn. CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. It’s much of design rules that help beautify a web page.

It’s used to customize the look and feel of the HTML elements on your page.

HTML and CSS are the building blocks of all web development.

Here's a good starting point to learn HTML & CSS if you are a complete beginner.

JavaScript

Next thing you should learn is a programming language. I recommend JavaScript, here's why.

JavaScript has become very popular among the software development industry. Currently, it’s used by 99% of all top sites on the web.

JavaScript is the most widely used programming language in the world and the fastest growing language 6-years in a row (Stackoverflow Stats 2018)

In fact, JavaScript is the only programming language that runs in the browser, hence it makes an inevitable tool to use for all Front-End Developers.

What got me excited to use JavaScript was that it can be used to build website front-end, backend, mobile, and even desktop applications.

jQuery

jQuery is a must know JavaScript library for every Front-End programmer and web developer. jQuery makes you better at understanding the browser, and how you can leverage the browser's capability to build fancy smooth features for your web application.

jQuery is a JavaScript library that is tremendously helpful to use when doing front-end development. A JavaScript library is a collection of several pre-coded features that a web developer would commonly use.

React / Angular

Next, you can either learn Angular or React. Angular and React are JavaScript frameworks that put structure around building a modern web application.

They will help you build an entire application. In fact, iLoveCoding's front-end application is built with React.

Ajax

Ajax uses JavaScript to load certain portions of web pages without reloading the entire page.

Ajax stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. Ajax is not a technology but a technique which is used in web programming to transfer information over the internet. Websites and web apps that use Ajax are generally faster to navigate than web apps that do not employ it.

Sites and applications using Ajax technique: Gmail, Facebook, YouTube, Google and Google Maps etc.

Job Titles for Front-End Developers

• Front End Web Developer or Front End Engineer
• Front-End JavaScript Developer
• UI/UX designers

What is Back-End Development?

Back-end Development refers to the server-side development where you are primarily focused on the functionality of the website and not the user interface. A back-end app powers the front-end application with data and security.

Consider you are in your twitter feeds. The Twitter front-end is responsible for showing you the feeds in a beautiful manner. The back-end, on the other hand is a software that gathers all the relevant feeds, just for you, and send it to the front-end to show.

This goes to show that a back-end is the data and security layer behind the front-end.

A back-end app would connect with one or more data sources to get its information. A data source could be a database, or another backend application.

Back-End Technologies

Backend apps can be built with any programming language. PHP, Java, C#, Python, Ruby. JavaScript; You name it.

If you are becoming a web developer, you already need to learn JavaScript for your front-end needs, it makes perfect sense that instead of learning a new programming language, we just use JavaScript for building our back-end application as well.

JavaScript originally was launched as a Front-End Programming language in 1995, but now with Node.js runtime, JavaScript can be easily used to build apps for the server as well.

In fact, Walmart, PayPal, Uber, LinkedIn, and countless other companies switched to using JavaScript on the server and saw tremendous performance gains.

Node.js

Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform run-time environment for developing server-side applications. Node.js enables JavaScript to be run on the server.

While using Node.js, you still write your normal JavaScript. Node.js just extends JavaScript’s capability to the back-end as well.

With the help of Node.js, you can run JavaScript on the machine itself. By machine, I mean outside the browser. This means that now JavaScript can run on the browser as well as on the machine. JavaScript can now replace and compete with other programming languages such as Ruby, Python, Java, PHP etc.

This drastically speeds up your learning curve and immediately makes you a back-end developer.

Express.js

Express.js is a JavaScript library, that helps you build Web APIs. You see just the say jQuery makes life easier for Front-End Developers. Similarly, Express.js makes life easier for back-end developers building web APIs with Node.js

Express.js provides a few very easy to use features that will assist you to build your web APIs that can serve the front-end.

Express.js has a great community and is very adaptable. Express.js works pretty well if you want to enable authentication, and connect your app with a database.

MongoDB

MongoDB is a NoSQL database that uses a document-oriented data model. I know I just used a few big words - NoSQL and document-oriented. Simply said MongoDB is a database that does not organize its data like typical SQL-based databases. Data stored in MongoDB has a JSON-like structure. This makes is very familiar for web developers to work with.

Make a Choice

Out of “Front End”, “Back End” or “Full Stack” Developer.

Which type do you prefer?

User Interaction? Become a front end developer!

Data Interaction? Become a back-end developer!

Knowing both Front-End + Back-End makes you a full stack developer!

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It’s tremendously difficult to get a job without any experience. So start building projects, it’s useful to have a way to manage and publish your code. For that, create an account on GitHub.

GitHub is an online source code repository built on the Git technology. It enables you to store, manage, and publish your code. If you are a developer today, you must have a GitHub account.

It's an endless learning process when it comes to web development, and you will always be learning new technologies. As you learn new technologies, put knowledge into practice and build something practical.

We at iLoveCoding, teach everything mentioned above. We teach beginners how to become a Front-End and Full-Stack JavaScript Developer. A person who knows both Front-End and Back-End. We empower you to create practical applications - Snake game, calculator app, To-do app, photo slider app, Song Search, App, Book Search App and much more.

Check out the Full Curriculum here.

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog. If you have any question, leave your comments below.