What is web development? How to start? The complete guideline!
Hey, Good Day! First of all, I am a successful web developer, designer, and entrepreneur. Just make sure that you are not gaining knowledge from the wrong person. okay, I will go straight to the topic now.
What The Spaghetti is Web Development?
Before you know about web development, Let me give a little bit of information about web design, domain & hosting.
(Note: This article focuses only on web development. So, I will only give a short briefing about the other concepts. I am writing about all the other concepts in detail soon.)
Web Design:
Thinking and designing the website layout, the content idea is called web design.
Web Development:
Web Designers make the idea of the user interface. When Businesses have the design concept of their web pages, They reach a web developer who checks the design and makes the website using some programming languages.
Domain and hosting:
The Website needs to be uploaded on the internet. The website needs a unique name which is the domain. You have to buy the domain. Then you have to buy a server that will be connected to your domain and store the website codes, content. It is called hosting.
Types of Web Development:
There are 3 types of Web Developers/ Web Programmers.
- Front-end Web Developer.
- Back-end Web Developer.
- Full-stack Web Developer.
The person who makes the user interface with programming languages from the web designers given design, or from his self-made design is a front-end web developer. (If he does the design then he is the designer too.)
The Person who connects the content with database, Handles server works. Example - There is a database connected. the website text, images are loaded automaticly from the database content. If you update the database, the website text will change automatically. And if you submit any form, that makes a server request, can get your given informations, store it in database, or do any particular work.
The person who can work with both front-end and back-end is called full-stack web developer. It’s now a demanding job position in many companies.
Web development is a big path and you have to learn new things constantly, so none can give you a full roadmap as new technologies will come and You must learn new things in every new project. I will just give you the start push and the basic knowledge of all fundamentals.
First, let’s start with front-end technologies and languages.
HTML & CSS:
Every website is made from HTML. It is the first thing you have to learn if you want to know about the web. It is a Markup (You can’t tell it a Programming language) language that works with “ Tags”. HTML - HyperText Markup Language. It is used to show the content of websites. Text, Images, Buttons everything.
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheet. As you can see from its name, It’s a styling language that is essential for the web.
HTML is the base of the website and it’s the starting. But it is very ugly. CSS is used to style the HTML Tags, Page content, buttons so that it looks visually okay.
Javascript:
Javascript is a programming/Scripting Language widely used in making website functionalities. It is also called EcmaScript.
Example- You reach the page bottom. There is a button called “Go to Top”. If you click it, It will take you back to Top of the page. In youtube if you hit the subscribe button, The Button text changes to “Subscribed” and the back color changes.
There are many technologies that make your CSS and javascript coding very easy and clean. It helps in making big websites and web apps. They are called CSS preprocessors, CSS frameworks, javascript web frameworks, Javascript libraries. We won’t cover them here.
Let’s get to back-end technologies now.
PHP/Python/Java:
I have only told about 3 languages on the title. But there are many back-end Programming languages. You can really learn any of them and start working. Each language has it’s weaknesses and strengths. I will recommend first start with PHP. Why? You will see many nerds hate PHP. But it is easy to learn, best for beginners, specially made for the web.
Python is a programming language highly used for machine learning, AI, Data structure works. But You can use it to do big websites with its framework named Django and another framework is Flask. You can use any of these 2 or you can also try other less popular frameworks.
Java is used in very big projects. Big industries hire certified Java Developers. However, you will need a good degree related to this if you want to get hired by the industries that use Java.
Note: This is a very important Notice. You just choose 1 and start. Every language fundamentals are almost the same as others. So, you can learn other languages and switch to them quickly once you learn the basics of one.
Database Query Languages:
When You finish learning the basics of a back-end language. Quickly start learning a Database Query Language. These languages are combined in the back-end language to make Database, Server commands.
There are 2 types of Databases-
- NoSQL Database. Some Languages- MongoDB, Cassandra, Redis
- SQL Database. Some Languages- MySQL (Best with PHP), PostgreSQL
Again, you can start with any of these. But, You should start with a SQL Database language.
Other Important Things to Have:
- Code Editor/IDE. Software where you write your programming codes. Example- VScode, Sublime Text, Atom, Notepad++ (Pick any 2) [ This is Essential tool ]
- Git and Github skill. Used for versioning and teamwork. (Read detailed info on other places.)
- Basic CMD command skills.
- Basic CMS knowledge like Working with WordPress/Wix/Shopify/Webflow. These are really lifesavers. When You have to do a project very quickly you can use these tools. They Hardly require high coding skills. They are standalone software for making websites sometimes. You can even work with them only without being an expert programmer.
Thank you very much for reading this far.
I hope you learnt something and got some idea about web development. Don’t get confused and
if you think you should start, START RIGHT NOW!!
Also, If you have any questions
/ if you want a professional website done
/ if you want some help in your online business
/ if you want a mentor,
You can contact me at getsamionweb@gmail.com
Please don’t think I am spamming or trying to highly promote myself, But if you think it’s a good idea, Feel free to contact.
