Learning web development can be a rewarding and intimidating process at the same time.
It is a skill that will pay a great dividend in an individual’s professional journey, hence it requires a great amount of hard work and learning.
This also means that there is a need for proper assimilation of this invaluable and high-demand skill making it dreadful prone and discouraging if the learner isn’t properly set on the right track.
This article is one that I can surely relate to because it doesn’t just talk about the fastest ways to become a developer but it brings the solution to the depression that I have gone through.
So, if you are going through a tough time learning this skill, feeling depressed as a result of your learning pace, and comparing your progress to others.
If you’re in any of these boats, one piece of advice, keep reading. 😁
WEB DEVELOPMENT
Web development is the process of building web applications that run on the web. These are usually applications that can be viewed and interacted with by users.
Web development is made up of three parts commonly called stacks, namely:
- Front-end development
- Backend development
- Full-stack development
These three stacks are the different ways of looking at web development and they are independent career paths that you can pursue as an aspiring web developer.
It will take quite some time to expatiate on them. Well, good thing I’m not running away.
Front-end developer
This is a person who learned the client-side aspect of web development. He/she is concerned with building web applications that the client (the user through the browser) can see. They focus more on the appearance of the website concentrating on things like colors, typography, positioning, etc
The main technologies that frontend developers use in their work are:
- HTML(HYPERTEXT MARKUP LANGUAGE)
- CSS (CASCADING STYLE SHEET)
- JAVASCRIPT
They also use additional tools that make development much easier called frameworks and libraries. These include;
- VUE
- REACT
- ANGULAR
- BOOTSTRAP
- TAILWIND
- NODE.JS
Backend developer
The guy who builds the interactive side of web applications and who brings functionality to the designed website is called the backend developer.
These developers make it possible for a user to send information via a form, and the developer can receive the input coming from the respective user and therefore can make use of that information.
Simply put, a backend developer makes the client and application interaction completely possible, else the web development process isn’t complete.
This set of professionals have the basic knowledge of:
- HTML
- CSS
However, they are expected to have fundamental knowledge and work constantly with most of the following:
- JAVASCRIPT
- NODE.JS
- EXPRESS.JS
- MONGOOSE
- POSTGRES
- PHP
- MySQL
In some cases, for those using python programming, they would use Django as a framework for backend development.
Full Stack developer
This web developer can be described as the best of both worlds.
He/she has professional knowledge of both the frontend and backend development knowing and using most of all the web application technologies common to a web developer.
Having gone through the three stacks of a web developer, we are now ready to delve into the ways of learning how to become a web developer quickly.
- Building Projects
I know this is a strategy that you probably must have heard before because of how popular it is in the software engineering industry. Nonetheless, it is an effective way to learn web development fast because as you go through the process of building projects you begin to see firsthand how things work and how they are being applied.
As you build projects often you begin to realize what works and what doesn’t.
So get projects and start building. This is will help to ensure that you get the hands-on experience of the web development process fast.
Some of the importance of building projects are:
- Growing a strong and better portfolio
The more you build projects the better you build projects and inadvertently, you create a wide pool of portfolios that you can show to your prospective clients and recruiters so that you can land the job you want. Also, it is professionally important to create a portfolio with series of projects to show your credibility.
- Learning fast
Learning web development fast is the reason why you are here and so it will be relieving to know that the more you build projects the faster you learn web development.
- Experience
If you don’t have experience with a craft you cannot deliver an excellent job.
Without experience, you won’t have the confidence to apply and take on available jobs. With a series of projects to your name, it becomes evident that you have a track record of work and the quality required to take on a gig.
- Confidence
Confidence is one important thing that you will gain when you build projects. That feeling of accomplishment when you complete a project will make you believe in yourself more and with that positive feeling, it becomes easier to be a web developer fast.
Here are some web development projects for you to have fun with:
- Todo list App
- Personal portfolio
- Product Landing Page
- Form page
- Documentation page
- Calculator
- Games
- A humanitarian project you’re passionate about
- Tribute page
2. Teaching others
It is quite true that when you teach what you learn you find more insights with regards to what you are learning.
I have found out that as you teach others what you know it is possible to encounter problems that could challenge the level of your assimilation which determines how and whether you can help solve the problem.
Check out this article about teaching to learn which would also give you some more insights into the concept of teaching what you’ve learned.
Let’s go over some benefits of teaching others, be it a peer, siblings, students what you learn in web development:
- Increase level of communication
Communication is an important soft skill in the tech industry, especially in the software development space. Thus, having this skill is vital. As you explain to others what you know, you try to find ways you could explain it better, therefore, improving your level of communication.
One last thing, you gain more confidence because you are giving out something the other person knows little about.
- Increase knowledge
A famous French moralist and essayist, Joseph Joubert puts it this way, “To teach is to learn twice”.
This means as you teach others you relearn gaining better insights and at the same time finding efficient ways to explain what you teach.
3. Practice
Practice is an activity that will never be erased from the process of learning anything worth learning especially coding. It is already a cliche to say that the more you practice the better you become.
Practice is just like exercise, the more you practice the stronger your mental, intellectual and coding muscles become.
While this activity is needed, you might be asking how you should go about it.
Truth is, you should practice building things… yeah, projects.
Sites like:
These websites provide you with mockups or a coding environment you can build projects on and share with others.
Conclusion
Now that you have seen the 3 fastest ways to become a web developer, it will be of great benefit to you if you try these strategies out for yourself.
Becoming a web developer is not an easy task but by building different projects, teaching/sharing your knowledge with others, and finally by practicing you will become a web developer fast.