web developer road map

Chances are that you have interest in web development but often indecisive about this whole trend of languages and stacks making it difficult to settle on development goals.

Not absolutely wrong. The world of web development can be daunting for freshers seeking new adventures in quest to better lives or switch careers.

In here, I walk you through the key models to grasp that will quickly aid your journey through the development landscape.

Am not going to bombard you with so many languages at the moment as you might have already seen on the web. The resource and tools you need to know to set you on your mask is what would be dealt with.

Of course, the trend of web development is so versatile and once you get firm grasp of the fundamentals, you keep building upon it.

What we will cover:

  1. Front-End Development
  2. Back-End Development
  3. Full Stack Developer

It’s incumbent to first know which of the above domain you take interest in to set the path for the expedition.

Do you have interest in creating stunning interfaces for the web? Turning mock-up ideas and prototypes into interactive codes? If yes to this, then Front-End Development might be your go to area.

Front-End Web Developer is responsible for implementing visual interfaces that users can interact with and see in a web application.

To take interest in server side logic such as user authentication of an application, speaks a voice of Back-End Developer.

Cumulatively, the combine role of Front-End and Back-End makes one a Full Stack Developer.

What then makes one Front-End, Back-End or Full Stack Developer? Let discus but before that, below is a general requirement as a web developer.

Required for any path:

  • Git – version control
  • GitHub
  • Basic terminal usage
  • Semantic versioning 
  • Data structures and algorithm 
  • HTTP/HTTPS and APIs
Git is a version control system design to handle small projects to large scale projects in an efficient way.
 
GitHub allows you to collaborate and share code with friends irrespective of Geo-location. Git and GitHub works together.
 
Basic terminal usage is important for every developer. It’s certainly almost impossible to never use the terminal as a developer. Basic knowledge is sufficient to get you started.
 
Semantic versioning known as SemVer is a 3 component number represented as X.Y.Z where X stands for major version, Y for minor version and Z for a patch.  Software versioning turn to be a major challenge to engineers and SemVer happens to be one of the best solutions.
 

Data structures and algorithm to develop well scale applications, programmers need to choose perfect logic to a problem leading to algorithm design which helps in choosing the finest solution.

HTTP/HTTPS and APIs working with api(s) is an essential part for all walks of application developers and as such, to excel in your field of expertise, a keen attention must be paid to application programming interface (api) and the communication of apps through http/https communication.

 

Front-End web development road map

MUST HAVE

HTML

CSS

JavaScript

ANY OF THESE

Bootstrap

Materialize css

Bulma

FRAMEWORKS – ANY

Angular

React

Vue

PACKAGE MANAGER

NPM

Yarn

The story goes beyond these but the goal here is to get you up and running quickly. Trying to learn everything before working on projects or applying for jobs, will never let you out of tutorial hell!

With a sound foundation, all other stuff will come in handy and it will prevent you from burning out as many do.

At the time of writing this post, the most popular JavaScript frameworks around is Angular, React and Vue. 

You are free to pick any since they are all JavaScript frameworks and with solid understanding of JavaScript, working with any of the frameworks won’t be much of a problem.

My preferred apart from the must have html, css and JavaScript is Angular, Bootstrap and npm. Pick what interest you and focus on that. Getting the job don is the end goal.

Back-End web development road map

There are numerous languages for back-end development:

  • Phython
  • Node.Js
  • PHP
  • Golang
  • Ruby
  • Rust
  • Java

Not to be decisive but I personally recommend learning Phython or Node.Js for the backend. If your are coming from JavaScript background, Node.Js will be essy to pick up.

Learn Relational and NoSQL Databases

Relational databases differs from NoSQL databases and you will get to know the difference when you learn them. Based on application requirement the decision will be made on which database best fit the scenario.

Relational Databases

  • MySQL
  • PostgreSQL
  • MariaDB

You can Start with MySQL for now

NoSQL Databases

  • MongDB
  • Cassandra
  • Couchbase
Start with MongoDB and take time to know the difference between cassandra and couchbase. 
 

Rest APIs

Creating restful apis is an integral part of back-end development and time need to be invested in this.

 

Authentication

User authentication is yet another core area in server side development (back-end) Learn the various ways to authenticate users:
  • OAuth
  • Basic authentication
  • Token based authentication
  • OpenID connect

Full Stack Developer

The combine task of Front and Back-End development levels you as a full stack with design abilities in addition.

Hope you find this sumarize road map helpful. Keep researching and learning as there is more into it than this but first, have solid understanding of the above.

Good luck in the development journey.