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What does ‘beginner’, ‘intermediate’, & ‘advanced’ REALLY mean?

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Aug 17.2009

I’m learning javascript, php, ajax, xml, MySQL, etc. Basically front-end development, with the goal of making a career out of it, hopefully within a couple of months.

I’m curious what are considered required skills for an entry-level developer job. Should I be able to pull certain things out of my head without needing a reference/cheat sheet? If so, what?

What skills should be ‘second nature’ to get a job in this field? i.e. form validation in javascript, connecting to a database via php?

Also, what would be ‘intermediate’ level? I’d like to know where my next stepping stones should be after ‘beginner’.

Obviously, I’m aware that I should pick my favorite language and work towards mastery of that and that learning all of this stuff takes time. I’m simply looking for some help in setting some milestones to keep me motivated and gauge my progress.

Any input from the community would be appreciated. Thanks!

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@cbVisionAug 17.2009 — You'll definitely want to include use of a graphic editing program, most commonly Adobe Photoshop.

Things that should be "common nature" are having the ability to take a PSD of the website prototype, and successfully create the version using W3C validated code. The website should support all the major browsers. You shouldn't need a cheat sheet to do that.

Once you successfully create any PSD design, you've pretty much mastered HTML and CSS. Next you'll want to look into using javascript and libraries such as jQuery to enhance the designs, followed by learning how to pull data from a database using a language such as PHP. This is where I'd see the cheat sheets coming in a little more since everything could very depending on the project.
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@littleoracleauthorAug 17.2009 — Sorry, should have mentioned I was previously a print designer. I know Photoshop really, really well and have been coding HTML/CSS for years now.

That being said, thanks for your input! I've been learning javascript, but haven't started on jquery yet, though I've considered it. Also started a bit on the php stuff and I feel more comfortable there than javascript so far.

Thanks again!

Anyone else able to add to this?
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@Stephen_PhilbinAug 19.2009 — I've been doing this stuff for years and I always open the manual at the same time as the IDE. Maybe it's because I'm forgetful; maybe it's because PHP has such loose naming conventions. I use a pretty wide spectrum of skills so it's common for me to get rusty with something because it's been a long time since I last used it. I've been tinkering almost exclusively in Java for about 9 months now, so I would imagine that when I eventually get back around to working with PHP it will seem quite alien to me despite it once being second-nature.

The things you should know without having to refer back to documentation (too much) are the general concepts of languages, rather than sytax-specific details such as method names and signatures. For example one of the most important things you need to get down when starting with a language is knowing how data and objects are passed around in your program. Not knowing if you're changing properties and calling methods of an object by using a reference to en existing object that can also be changed by another part of your program, or if you're doing it directly to a discrete object that can not be altered by other parts of the program can be a big problem. Being unaware of the scope in which objects and variables are availible is also something that can either leave your program working exactly as expected or totally failing and leaving you clueless as to why.

EDIT: Oh and forget about "advanced", "beginner" and so on. They're just relative terms that have no real meaning in in most contexts. I have my own idea of what an acceptible level of competence is. I guess you could say it's my idea of "average", but it certainly isn't the average standard I usually see out there in the wild.
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