Practical Tips on Becoming a Web Developer in 2023
Where should I start?
Since you are here anyways, just start here.
This is a series of guides focusing on building your skills so as to maximise your chances of landing that remote web developer job you so urgently want and need.
In this series of guides, we will be using the MERN Stack to illustrate most of our examples.
The MERN Stack === MongoDB Express.js React.js Node.js
In the world of Javascript, the "===" is the operator we use to check if two variables are identical or not, like this:let var1 = '2';
let var2 = 2; console.log(var1 === var2); // false
The short version on becoming a web developer
- read about HTML, CSS and Javascript
- watch YouTube coding tutorials
- understand the concepts you have just read about
- implement what you have just read into real code — use a code editor like VS Code
- run your code — if you are playing around with Javascript in VS Code then you simply just need to create a file called test.js, then open the terminal inside VS Code and run the following command:
node test.jsThis terminal command executes the code inside the Javascript file, test.js
- play around with your code some more by changing a few things and seeing what happens
- the final thing you should do is to write up what you have just learnt by playing with your code — you can do this by keeping your notes in MD files (Markdown files)
- then you can use the search feature in VS code to find keywords in your notes — see also Tip 2 below to see what kind of notes you should making
- revisiting notes helps to consolidate your knowledge
Pro Tip:
Use the folliwng shortcut to find keywords in any file inside VS code:
Window Key + Shift Key + FWe are not affiliated to the following resources but these resources are pretty cool. They should all be free!
- freecodecamp (https://www.freecodecamp.org)
- Traversy Media (by Brad Traversy)
The longer version
"Learn as though you would need to teach this knowledge to someone whose life depended on how well they understand the knowledge."If you do not roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty with some coding, the road to becoming the best Web Developer you can be will much longer.
Tip 1: Reading is important to learning period. But just doing reading about how to code will not make you a good programmer.My recommendation is read enough so you can start implementing them in your codebase right away without forgetting what you have just learnt. What I am trying to say is that you should have just enough of the concept in your head for what you want to implement in your code. If you try to squeeze anything else in your head, it would be wasted. Worse still, it will confuse you. There is just so much to learn about coding. You can't just keep reading without actual coding.
But what about if you take the opposite approach? You mean just coding without reading? Yes.
If you are just blindly coding without thinking critically about your code, then you would waste a lot of time with trial and errors.
Your learning can be much faster once you can get a good balance between reading and coding.
And if you are an avid programmer, then you should be writing too — you can start a simple coding blog right here on Medium.
So to summarise — to be a good programmer, you need to find the right balance between:
- reading about concepts
- bringing those concepts to life through coding
- writing about your findings to consolidate your learning
Tip 2: Try to make a list of gotchas. The cool thing about gotchas is that they are personal to your own understanding.Gotchas are usually those things you find out for yourself from first-hand experience. They are your assets because you have gave up your own time, having gone through a trial and error process yourself, to obtain them.They should be short and concise chunk of text no longer than a paragraph (around 250 words maximum) that summarises what you have just learnt. Actually the less word you can use to explain something the better you understand it. Sprinkle the gotcha texts with keywords which will make it a lot easier for you to look up information in the future. Just as an example:Inline css will overwrite any css in a style.css file so if I have stated the color as blue for a button in the style.css file but there is inline css styling for that button and it is stated as red - the button would appear red.
Next, find a list of clear and reliable resources to build your coding knowledge repository.
If you take some time and go through some of the resources below, you should be well on your way to becoming a better developer and building a better Web Dev Career.
Here is a list of resources to help you get stuck in with web development right away:
- https://www.theodinproject.com/
- https://www.freecodecamp.org/learn
- https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn
- https://www.w3schools.com/
- https://www.w3schools.com/icons/fontawesome_icons_intro.asp
- https://stackoverflow.com/ (alternatively, you can try to search for something you want to know then add stackoverflow as part of your search phrase e.g. what is the difference between HTML and CSS + StackOverflow)
- https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2021
- https://redux.js.org/
- https://reactjs.org/
- https://angular.io/
- https://vuejs.org/
- https://nextjs.org/ (use this with React.js)
- Data Structures and Algorithms in JavaScript — Full Course for Beginners
- JavaScript DOM Manipulation — Full Course for Beginners
- Learn JavaScript — Full Course for Beginners
We provide the following 1 on 1 training programs:
- Full Stack Web Development
- Interview Prep
If you have any questions regarding our services or publications , you can reach us at team@remoteupskill.com
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Until next time — keep coding while moving small steps forward on this coding adventure of yours.
But more importantly, stay focused!
