Get our Newsletter!Part 1 in series “Ask a Web Developer”.
I’ve been asked this question a hundred times: “How do I get started as a Web Developer?”
The answer to this question is a bit complicated because “web development” has many facets and no one can possibly master them all. With the rise of mobile platforms (like the iPhone and Android) this statement has never been more true.
That being said, I think a lot of web developers have a similar story regarding how they got started. Maybe the best answer to this question is to tell the story about how I became a web developer.
With any good story, we need to answer: Who?, What?, Where?, When?, Why? and How?
Step 1: Why, What and Where
When I first started, I was basically goofing around with a crappy personal website. At the time I thought it would be cool to build a Motley Crue fan site… which looking back years later seems a bit lame.
I found a service (GeoCities) that allowed me to build a free website using a simple WYSIWYG editor. Although I didn’t really know what I was doing, I started to see how pages were linked together by viewing the HTML source code in my browser.
My advice:
Decide on a project to get yourself started – I would suggest creating a blog on some topic you actually enjoy.
Then, find a place to host your blog. Here’s a few free services:
Step 2: How
After learning the basics, I started reading about HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Things moved slowly in the beginning, but as I started to understand the concepts my website slowly got better and better.
The hardest part about this step is that there’s so many things to learn and the web development landscape is always changing. HTML5 and CSS3 are recent improvements to those languages, and there’s a ton of JavaScript frameworks (jQuery, ExtJS, YUI, etc…) to choose from. Your mission will be to start thinking about what you want to do with your skills because you can’t possibly master them all.
My advice:
Do a Google search for any of those topics and you’ll find millions of websites and blogs dedicated to web development. Take ideas from these sites and start using them on your own webpage.
Here are a few good resources to get you started:
Step 3: Make it Better!
By the time you’ve made it to this step, you should already have a functioning website (or blog) that looks respectable. Your next goal should be to build a new website, mixing the skills you’ve already learned with something new that you want to learn.
You should also start experimenting with server-side languages (PHP or ASP/.NET) and maybe even explore creating a database-driven website.
What’s Next?
The only questions I didn’t cover were Who and When… but those just mean you and now.
The one thing that you’ll find is that the web development landscape is always changing, which requires all developers to constantly refine and learn new skills. You need to make it a priority to read a new blog everyday. Also follow relevant people on Twitter – I see great resources posted several times a day.
Ask a Web Developer!
Have a question you want answered? Contact me through my website or send me a message on Twitter (@arthurakay). Then stay tuned to my YouTube channel for the answers!
