So You Want To Be A Developer?

SO YOU WANT TO BECOME A DEVELOPER?

Oh hi there, so you want to become a web developer? Okay. You are most welcome to the club.

Web development has so much evolved in the last decade and has become even dynamic than it used to be. One of the first things you need to know here is that just like every good thing in life, it requires patience, focus, dedication, consistency and continuous learning. Software developers are by default lifelong learners or we like to refer to ourselves as that because that is really how to remain relevant.

To get started we need to keep in view what developers used to be and what they are now because it has been quite a stretch to say the least.

The first website was built way back in 1991 and today may look like something that was designed by a developer-in-training today on their first day at learning HTML but this in fact was a standard website because of the tools that were available at the time. This is the first ever website published here

Basically this evolved to whipping up HTML, CSS and whipping up some PHP scripts. A database to handle the backend involved using MySQL to save information in tables. Voila! that used to be enough.

Fast forward to 2018 and the web development cycle has largely changed and has become almost like an Ethereum block chain in the sense that new technologies can be easily built upon it. Web applications are faster, more optimized, more visually aesthetic. Naturally with this change, appeal and satisfaction to the end user has come new and more diverse tools with which these applications are built. Several applications have also been upgraded to fit and even use these technologies.

With this has come the need for newbies in the development to learn and become well versed in these technologies. Now to create a web application you will require knowledge and application of HTML or its newest version, HTML 5.2 for page structure. You’ll need to know how to use and apply CSS or its newest version CSS4. Knowledge of JavaScript cannot be left out; the majority of internet is running on JavaScript. JavaScript has gone from being a language used in adjusting sliders, images and doing tricks on the user interface to a fully fledge and functional programming language that can be used in both the front end and the back end of applications and one that is supported by all modern browsers.

In the front end too, frameworks like AngularJS have been widely adopted. VueJS and Facebook-owned React are also options because development goes further than just HTML and CSS. Task runners and builders like Gulp and Grunt. Templating engines like Jade, emberJS or embeddedJS go further in optimizing the front end and user interface.

Apart from proficiency in the aforementioned trio, developers need to have proficient knowledge in developer operations (DevOps). They need to know how to set up and create adequate and functional isolate developer environments using tools like Vagrant or Docker. Using these tools will require downloading and setting up various software in a guest machine, so one can work in a developer environment.

A developer will also need to have knowledge of the backend. That goes beyond the visual and the interactive interface. This will involve knowledge of web servers like Apache and Nginx, working with PHP 7.0 at the backend. Knowledge of nodeJS is also inevitable in this age while understanding this part of web development.
Tools like Redis will be required in reducing and slicing host costs and Elasticsearch by elastic.co as a search engine.

In the database area, there are options like MongoDB, Cassandra and even graph databases like Neo4J. These are also part of the servers in the backend.

Before embarking on any project, a developer needs to be able to sketch out a proper design and plan in carrying out their project. This involves using and understanding the right tools to use in crafting out the project, setting up the environment, selecting a convenient text editor like Sublime Text, Atom or the newly released Microsoft Owned Visual Studio Code. Drawing a clear road map of what the end of the application should look like. This is not to forget acute and industry standard software documentation.

The developer also needs to be in tune and familiar with Version Control like git using tools like GitHub or BitBucket to store code and publish it where it can be seen if need be. In 2018, GitHub is your new resume and your connection to working remotely because it just plainly shows your code and also you think and write code.

So the above is a summary of the full stack developer of today. But let it be known that each of these individual tools are quite expansive and extensive and so very few people are experts in each and every one of them. Rather these days, people choose their specialty, focus on them and become experts in those fields.

In general, that’s pretty much a sketch of the scope of the dynamics of web development. Do you still want to be a developer? The rewards and opportunities are also massive too.

If you want to start your journey as a developer, there are tons of great websites dedicated to teaching newbies from the scratch. These include freecodecamp, Codecademy, Coursera, to name just a few. Anyway if you want to learn offline, I know a pretty good place too. Right here