Important Update
Becoming a developer and learning a new web developing skill has never been easier before. On a very basic level, a beginner can start by learning HTML and CSS. HTML and CSS are relatively simple to understand because there are numerous online and offline tools available that help in speeding up the learning process. After HTML and CSS, JavaScript is another important skill that adds interactivity to otherwise static web pages. The next milestone in learning web development in PHP, is a server-side scripting language, enabling the integration of databases with the webpages. A beginner can learn the above-mentioned technologies in a comparatively short time, but there are many content management systems and frameworks that are built upon these basic technologies and their understanding becomes stronger with time.
In essence, HTML and CSS allow the building of basic web pages. JavaScript enables adding interactivity to these pages. These three technologies solely run on the user’s brewers and even allow the creation of basic web apps.
HTML converts plain text into a structured webpage and CSS adds various styles to that webpage such as themes, colors, font, and background. Although regular CSS has a ton of features, it lacks some programming features such as variables, loops, and conditionals. CSS preprocessors allow the addition of these features. Common CSS preprocessors include SASS, Stylus, and LESS. Furthermore, the CSS frameworks add responsiveness to webpages, optimizing viewing on multiple screen sizes in addition to easy styling. There are many frameworks and figuring out the usefulness of each framework will only be possible with experience. Some popular frameworks include Bootstrap, Bulma, UIkit, and Foundation.
It is the most popular scripting and programming language, and surprisingly simple to learn. JavaScript makes it easy to manipulate web pages in response to user interaction. Apart from plain JavaScript, there are various JavaScript libraries that contain built-in functions to simplify and speed up the coding. The most popular JavaScript library is jQuery, recently, however, frontend JavaScript frameworks such as React, Angular, and Vue are replacing jQuery. These frameworks build upon JavaScript libraries, offering ready-made code to prevent developers from starting from scratch.
CSS frameworks add responsiveness in websites but these frameworks are often bloated and may produce unnecessary results on some devices. JavaScript frameworks and libraries are useful, but there are so many choices and complexities involved that it is impossible to comprehend everything in one go. There are many testing and debugging issues that only become familiar with time and experience. User interface control is also a very important feature. However, the optimization of the user interface is only possible once you start developing a website and get feedback from actual users. There are many brewers that users use, and developers need the experience to display websites optimally on each brewer as well as on mobile devices.
Backend technologies are the heart of web development, and this is where most beginner developers feel overwhelmed. Backend development is controlled by languages such as PHP, Python, Java, Ruby, and NodeJS among many others. Backend web development integrates servers, databases, and APIs.
Server-side programming languages respond to user requests and deliver appropriate content. It only runs on servers. To make things fast and easier, PHP also has frameworks. Some of the most used PHP frameworks are especially useful for web application development, they include Laravel, Drupal, CodeIgniter, CakePHP, and Symfony, among others. Frameworks build upon pure PHP and enable developers to start quickly by providing them with ready-made libraries and built-in functions. PHP frameworks save time, prevent repetition, and allow rapid development.
Apart from PHP, many languages are used for server-side scripting including Python, Java, Node.js, and Ruby on Rails. Python is mainly preferred by new developers and enables fast application development. Some popular Python frameworks include Django, Flask, and web2py, etc. Alternatively, Node.js is built upon JavaScript and it can be used on both the frontend and the backend. Furthermore, there are many node.js frameworks such as Express.js, Meteor.js, and Nest.js, etc. These frameworks simplify and accelerate the development process.
In addition to server-side scripting and programming languages, the knowledge of web server software is also essential. Webservers enable the connection between the web browser and the server. The most used web server applications are Apache and NGINX. Apache is open source and the most widely used, whereas NGINX is comparatively faster. Other web server applications include IIS, Oracle WebLogic, LightSpeed, Lighted, etc.
An important backend development technology is the incorporation of databases to store data and deliver content stored in databases. Scripting languages such as PHP enable communication between the server and databases. Common databases include MySQL, MariaDB, MongoDB, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, and more. MariaDB is faster than MySQL.
APIs allow front-end and back-end application communication. Some APIs are synchronous because they make us wait for their response after we submit a request. While some APIs are asynchronous, meaning they can respond at any time but we can continue our work. A common type is a RESTful API. It allows the obtaining of data from a server. Another type is SOAP API, which defines the rules for communication between different web services and clients.
CMSs allow the user to generate, manage, and change content on a website without advanced technical knowledge. They eliminate the need to build websites from scratch, instead, they provide templates and frameworks to build a website rather quickly. Therefore, an experienced developer has a strong knowledge of the inner workings of CMSs and template creation. A good developer must be able to provide support for templates and update their templates regularly to ensure security and reliability.
Learning regular development skills such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP is easy to learn, but the skills which only come with experience include
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