Welcome to Web Developer Land. This site aims to teach anyone about web development. We’re in our starting stages, but feel free to look around!
What is web development?
Web development is an umbrella term, encompassing everything that has to do with developing a website. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes before you get to see the pretty pictures and text belonging to a website.
Most websites have multiple tiers:
- A frontend: the interface with which the user interacts
- A backend: All the components that feed the frontend with information and optionally store data for users
This website is about web development, which means a wide range of topics will be covered!
What you can expect from this site
I’m just a guy that happens to have quite a lot of experience in IT. I’ve done (and do) everything, from web development to data science and big data. Oh yeah, and I write a lot about these topics on the side too. Some of my other work you can find on:
- My Python tutorial at Python Land
- My Medium.com profile and Python publication
However, there’s only so much I can write, especially since I have an actual day job too.
So you should see this site as a way to get solid guidance on learning about web development, no matter what your level of knowledge is. That’s the way I structured it, and that’s also the audience that I write for. I provide you with articles and tutorials on selected topics, but I also link to other sites a lot. These links are heavily curated, and not just the first result that came up in a google search. Where applicable, I’ll recommend books and video courses too.
Since it’s easy to feel lost when learning new subjects, I take a lot of care in bringing some order in the chaos. Just like a book, this site has an order. You can read it from A to Z, so to say.
Web development learning path
This is, roughly, the learning path you should follow to become a web developer:
- start with HTML,
- then learn CSS,
- then JavaScript.
You’ll find out that this website facilitates learning things in that order as well.
HTML
If you are completely new to web development, you should start with my HTML tutorial, in which you learn the markup language used to create websites. HTML defines the elements that are present on a webpage, like:
- headings,
- paragraphs,
- images,
- links,
- and all the other things a webpage can contain.
After teaching you the basics, I provide you with links to further resources that deepen your knowledge of the subject.
CSS
After HTML, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a good follow-up topic to dive into. It allows you to control every aspect of how your pages look and feel. While HTML defines the content, CSS defines the style of that content.
JavaScript
The next natural step is to learn JavaScript, allowing you to create more advanced, interactive web pages. For this, I wrote a JavaScript tutorial that introduces you to the essentials you need to know. Since there’s an enormous amount of free resources out there, I will provide you with heavily curated links to the best resources to go as deep as you want to.
JavaScript could be seen as optional. You can get a long way without using JavaScript, actually. As long as you don’t need interactive pages, JavaScript won’t come into play.
And then what?
After learning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, you know a whole bunch about web development already. Now things get a little hairy. Should you learn TypeScript as well? Which, if any, of the excellent frontend frameworks should you learn? Angular, React, VueJS? It’s up to you, although I will happily give my advice. And should you tip your toes in backend engineering as well?
The answer to all these questions is: it depends! Your situation dictates what you need to learn once you have the basics under your belt. If you’re part of a team, and you’ll be doing front-end only, then you better focus and deepen your front-end skills. If you’re alone and want to create a complete project from A to Z, you need to become a full-stack engineer and get a good grasp of backend engineering as well.
Remember this though: the basics (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) are the most important for now. The rest are just tools to get a job done. Tools that can be replaced and roughly all do the same thing. Don’t spend too much time picking a framework, a particular tool, or even a programming language. My advice is to learn what best fits your team or work environment, but get a solid grasp of those basics first; the rest will come much easier if you do!