Think of it, you get to be the brain behind that successful website, you can create the best user experience for over 2 billion users. Also, websites are here to stay for the next decades, therefore you’d still be relevant in the field as long as you’re growing.
What’s amazing is that you can learn web development just on your own. When you’re done reading this post, you’d have very clear directions on how to become a professional web developer. The steps explained here are achievable and proved over years by several expert web developers, you can become one by following through.
Before starting the steps, it’s important you understand the following…
Who is a Web Developer?
Based on the process of web development, a web developer is a programmer that creates web-based applications to be accessed through the internet. These websites would have specific features and functions that the web developer is responsible to build through his programming skills.
Web development consists of 2 major sections; as an aspiring web developer, you can choose to specialize in any of the sections.
- FrontEnd Web Developer would be responsible to build and design layouts, features, and appearance of a website. This role is also called client-side developer.
- BackEnd Web Developer is responsible for building the driving system of a website. They are responsible for building the best framework that allows data to be easily transferred from the web server to the web browser – as seen by the users.
Honestly, no crime combining both roles, being an expert in both FrontEnd & BackEnd development, only that you’d have to learn a lot more. People who are skilled in Front-end and Back-end web development are called Full-stack developers – they are highly respected and well-paid. Deciding on a specification is important as you’d see in coming sections.
So, how would we define a perfect Web Developer?
The Perfect Web Developer.
Primarily, you have to be interested in writing codes. The programming language is the building block of a website, every website solution you will ever create will be written with programming languages.
If you’ve not written a code before, it’s quite easy to learn. There are great resources online to learn coding for beginners – where you’d be taught step by step towards becoming a great programmer.
To be a perfect front-end web developer, you need to learn the following programming languages:
- HTML & CSS
- Javascript
- jQuery
- Bootstrap
- Flash
- Microsoft Silverlight
These programming languages are regularly updated, therefore be sure to learn the most recent.
In the same way, the perfect back-end web developer must be skilled in the following programming languages:
- PHP
- MySQL
- Java
- Ruby
- Node.js etc
Note that some of these programming languages perform the same role, it’s not necessary to learn all.
If you’re already familiar with some of these languages you can use them, however, for newbies I’d suggest you learn HTML & CSS, jQuery, Javascript and Bootstrap for Front-end development and/or PHP and MySQL for Back-end development.
Every successful web developer carefully went through the following process I’ve curated for you to follow.
Here it is…
7 Steps to become a professional web developer.
- Choose a specialty. As explained earlier, you can choose FrontEnd web development or BackEnd development and specialize. If you want to be a Full Stack developer, you should start with FrontEnd.
- Acquire the needed programming language skill. Each web development specialty has the necessary programming languages that you should learn. This has been highlighted above.
- Take on small projects. You need to start small, take on small projects, complete them and move on to bigger ones. No need to rush, big and complex websites are built on simple principles you’d encounter in these small projects.
- Be very patient in testing and debugging. After you’re done writing those codes, ensure to test them. Also, as you debug the codes, do it patiently so that you’d learn not to repeat such errors as you take on bigger projects.
- Join a web developers forum and interact. An active web developers community is good for you. You get to learn from others’ errors, judge others’ works, get informed on important updates and several other benefits.
- Learn from other websites. Checking up websites that you find appealing is a good way to also become a professional. You can incorporate their codes into your projects to help you learn faster.
Lastly…
- Practice! Practice!! Practice!!! Behind every successful website are hours of training and practicing of the same. You get better in repetition.
In conclusion, web development is a great skill anyone can have. No university degree is needed to become a professional. All that’s needed is a willing mind and following simple directions like this post has provided. Good luck to you as you start your journey! Cheers!
This is a guest post by Rokas Malakauskas.