Intro to Web Development
By: Jeff Escalante
Tags: Programming, Web Development, Careers, Article

Intro to Web Development

exploring a new potential career

So now we all know that you should treat your job like a relationship. But let’s get a little more specific — I’ve had a lot of people ask me about careers in web development. So let’s dive in and explore this specific type of career in a little more depth.

We’ll start with a common comparison: how would you explore a person you are interested in a little more? Easy answer — spend time with them. This should not be a strain, since you are interested in this person you are excited to spend more time with them. If you find it to be a struggle to get yourself to sit down and learn more about technology, drop it. It means you aren’t really interested.

So let’s say you are interested, happy to spend time exploring further. How would you do this with a person? You’d probably start with something simple. Maybe dinner or drinks, and you’d chat about the foundations. What kind of person they are. Their history and background. Their interests. Start building up a foundation upon which you piece together their character in order to better understand and connect with them.

It should be the same way with your exploration of technology. There are programs where you can pay thousands of dollars to take intensive courses, full time. This is roughly equivalent to inviting someone on a week-long exclusive vacation, just the two of you together. This is a huge commitment. You would not do this on a whim. You would not do this after dating someone for a week, or just because they are great-looking and seem like a good bet. You would only do it if you were really serious about that person. Some people make the decision to enroll in an intensive program early, on a whim, for technology jobs. The programs make false claims, advertising a guaranteed job. People feel like once they have learned the skills, they are all set — they will jump into a new high-paying job and instantly be happy. Unfortunately, this is just about as stupid as taking an offer from a romantic vacations company that offers a “guaranteed relationship” for thousands of dollars with someone you have only been on one or two dates with. It’s ridiculous, and there’s a huge risk that you will have wasted all that money. Better to wait until you are much more confident before investing.

Foundations

Many people also start thinking about a career in web development based on an attempt to build a “cool startup idea” that they had. After learning about the high costs of hiring a development firm, self-building seems more attractive. However, actually building a functional web application is not the first step in this career, much like building a mansion from scratch is not the first thing you would attempt when learning to be a carpenter. You have to start simple, with the basic foundational skills, then work your way up to the masterpiece, over time. To build a modern web application, here’s a list of skills you need to know, and understanding each of these skills takes the equivalent of at least a full semester college course of work and time. Most of them significantly more.

HTML

CSS

Basics of Programming

Javascript

Graphic Design

Advanced Programming

Python, Ruby, PHP, Node, or another server-side language

Databases

SQL

The Internet & The HTTP Protocol

Usability, Analytics, and Statistics

You have to have a solid understanding of each of these skills before you will be able to confidently build a web application. If you lack understanding in any one of them, the application will be incomplete — at best ineffective and at worst non-functional. There are no shortcuts here, it takes years to accumulate all this knowledge. Oh yes, and if at any point in this process, you feel like it’s starting to become a chore, and you have lost interest, time to drop it and move on.

Still feel like you want to do this? Good, it might be the kind of work you really love. Let’s get specific and talk about how you can get started learning how to be a web developer the right way, from scratch.