Contents
In the next articles we will discuss the following topics:
- Intro
- Part 1 — HTML, CSS — visual part
- Part 2 — Front-end development
- Part 3 — Backend development
In my career many times I used articles or tutorials of other developers. Learning could’ve been much longer and harder if I didn’t have those materials.
So the best way to thank all those people is to give back to the community.
I’d like to start a series of articles describing how to become a web developer.
Why learn to program?
It is used everywhere. Let’s list some of the areas where coding is used: apps for cell phones, computers, cars, any electronic devices, refrigerators, supermarket cash registers, toys, games, aircraft…
With the arrival of robotics and automation demand in programmers only increases. You hear that robots will replace our jobs. Self-driving cars, robotized factories, delivery robots, robotic warehouses…
Wait! But finally, somebody has to support all those robots! To write the software to run all this technology.
Therefore it worth to dedicate at least some time to know how the contemporary world works.
Why learn web development?
Internet industry constantly growing since the ’90s. In the last ten years, it became the center of our lives. People talk, meet friends, play games, buy, pay, work, read, publish online.
We are surrounded by web technologies and use them all day long.
Where you can use it?
As JavaScript gains popularity with raising usage of internet, it became a universal programming language.
The following things can be built with JS:
- Websites
- Web applications
- Mobile apps
- Progressive web apps (work online and from a computer)
- Robots ( Node.js for Arduino )
- Smart TVs
- Games
- …etc.
Learning process
It is very easy to get lost in all this endless ocean of articles and tutorials. Therefore you should sketch down the path and the result you want to achieve. I offer you my path described in this series.
Be attentive in the learning process to keep the balance between theoretical materials to actual practice. Otherwise, you may find yourself knowing everything without being able to write real applications.
For me, the most efficient way to learn is hands-on code. So try to move topic by topic. Each time confirm your knowledge by coding a small application.
Sometimes it’s boring to do dry exercises. Working with real-world implementations can help overcome this feeling. Also, you can understand if you like the profession or not.
So think about some application. It may be an application to support some hobby, sport or any of your interests. Then start coding, using recently studied technologies.
You may find good code editors with autocomplete. Though on the first stage it is strongly suggested to write all the code. And stay away from copy&paste until it will become easy for you to write code.
You may use codepen or notepad++. The first one is easier as does not require installation. Also has code highlighter which will be really helpful pointing on mistakes.
Web development overview
Web page or web application is a program which runs in the internet environment and uses a web browser to be displayed.
There are two main parts participating in the process: browser client and the server.
A server stores web page and responds to requests from a client.
When a user enters domain address server responds with corresponding data. Which represented in a browser as a web page.
Further, we will explore it more in detail.
Conclusion
In this introductory article, I explained the reason why learn programming, why to choose web development, and where those skills could be used. And the general approach to learning web development — is by practicing immediately after learning new material.
Hope you were convinced. Let’s start!