Want to be a Web Developer

@kelicsNov 03.2016

I recently graduated with a degree in Computer Science and as far as I can recall Web Development was always my favourite subject.

I am looking for a job at the moment but its quite tough to get a job without any work related experience. The only experience I have is academic. So since I’m unemployed at the moment I came up with an idea to make some money on the side by building basic websites for small companies or individuals . I’m quite good with HTML/CSS with some knowledge and experience with JS, JQ and bootstrap.

My questions:

~~[B]~~Which languages – techniques – methodologies etc. are the most valued by employers in today’s Web Development world?[/B]

~~[B]~~Does Photoshop has much significance for frond-end developers ? [/B]

I really feel like I should start making websites for people, but there’s always “what if I’m not good enough”.

Anything you could share with me, books, tutorials, other material I would appreciate that.

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Full-stack Developer

10 Comments(s) _↴

@NogDogNov 03.2016 — #A few random thoughts...

You can always make web sites for yourself. Got a favorite hobby? Make a blog about it, or a Pinterest-like site about it, or whatever.

Does some local church, school, charity, etc. need help with their web site (or creation of one)? You could help them out for free, add it to your portfolio, and feel good about helping them.

As a server-side specialist, I have no thoughts about PhotoShop, though that seems of more use to graphic designers, who would then produce images a front-end web developer might use. If you have the ability to be both graphic designer and front-end developer, more power to you. (My artistic skills are very limited. ? )

As far as desired skills, on the front-end side of things, that seems really dynamic these days. Obviously you need HTML and CSS and JavaScript. But now there are all sorts of related frameworks, plug-ins, pre-compilers, etc., etc., and so forth, that from my server-side viewpoint, I'm totally confused. https://hackernoon.com/how-it-feels-to-learn-javascript-in-2016-d3a717dd577f#.qyfmbhd0i

On the server-side end of things, you need a good grasp of database design/optimization, along with one or more of the commonly used languages, and probably a relevant MVC framework (e.g. any Ruby developer will be expected to know Rails, Python users should know Django, and PHP developers these days should probably know Laravel, or have experience with Zend, Symfony, or one of the other older frameworks).

@kelicsauthorNov 04.2016 — #Thanks man, much appreciate it! I already started working on my music website, where I will post my music videos. And after that I duno.. maybe build sample projects to show people what I can do for them. Obviously I need to do a lot of research how to do this and that. Thanks again for bringing some positive to the table

@scriptloverNov 05.2016 — #thanks kelics.,. your thread gave me information.. its useful for me also

@kelicsauthorNov 06.2016 — #good luck with finding ways mate ?

@dliNov 06.2016 — #I recently graduated with a degree in Computer Science and as far as I can recall Web Development was always my favourite subject.

I am looking for a job at the moment but its quite tough to get a job without any work related experience. The only experience I have is academic. So since I'm unemployed at the moment I came up with an idea to make some money on the side by building basic websites for small companies or individuals . I'm quite good with HTML/CSS with some knowledge and experience with JS, JQ and bootstrap.

My questions:

[B]Which languages - techniques - methodologies etc. are the most valued by employers in today's Web Development world?[/B]

[B]Does Photoshop has much significance for frond-end developers ? [/B]

I really feel like I should start making websites for people, but there's always "what if I'm not good enough".

Anything you could share with me, books, tutorials, other material I would appreciate that.[/QUOTE]

First, let's start with the title (Goal), "Web Developer", it can be one of two things or just one of them. They are a website developer, a web application developer. You can be both of them.

Now, let's take a quick look at the market, for website, most of your potential clients would be small business owners or entrepreneurs, your business would depend on not only your technical skills but also business skills including marketing and communications etc...

for web applications, the market would be pretty board, corporations (big guys), gov agencies, mid-sized companies, entrepreneurs etc... Your selling point would primarily be your technical skills.

Since I'm a web application developer, let me talk about this role. Designing and developing a solid web application requires three core sets of skills, client side (HTML, JavaScript, CSS, some JS library such as jQuery and arguably some JS framework as well), server side (programming languages including ColdFusion, php, .NET, Java), back-end database including MS Access, MS SQL Server, mySQL, PostgreSQL. A good web application developer has to be a full stack web application developer. Server side programming, you could start with just one, same goes for database management systems.

In addition, based on your description, you could start with building websites... in the meantime, start to get into web application development...

@kelicsauthorNov 08.2016 — #Thanks man ?. I think I just concentrate on one thing which is web development. I done some android development at uni and it was absolute nightmare, not done anything more difficult than android. So I believe in order to be very good at something you need to concentrate on one thing, you cant be a professional football player and a scientist at the same time, its 2 different things I know, but so is web development and app development, similar but different.

@dliNov 08.2016 — #Thanks man ?. I think I just concentrate on one thing which is web development. I done some android development at uni and it was absolute nightmare, not done anything more difficult than android. So I believe in order to be very good at something you need to concentrate on one thing, you cant be a professional football player and a scientist at the same time, its 2 different things I know, but so is web development and app development, similar but different.[/QUOTE]

You got it! And you're welcome.

JavaScript goes for both website and web app dev, so, you may want to allocate time to consciously beef it up... If you're already proficient with HTML/HTML5 and have a good hang of JavaScript, I'll send a link to a re-usable JavaScript function I created recently, it is useful to web developers.

@kelicsauthorNov 15.2016 — #Thank you, I would be curious to see it. I try to be more efficient with JQuery. Its kinda easier, you just use pre written functions

@Bhavna_MalhiNov 15.2016 — #If you want to be a web developer then you must have a good knowledge related to information.

@dliNov 15.2016 — #"I try to be more efficient with JQuery. Its kinda easier, you just use pre written functions", it's not XOR (exclusive OR), in other words, you need to know jQuery because it can help you to get a lot of things done, in the meantime, if there's something that either you don't know if jQuery can handle well or jQuery simply can't handle well then you need to come up with your own, hence, strong pure JavaScript skill is very desirable.

The following re-usable JavaScript function I created is for dynamic addition of FORM elements (for now I just support modern browsers), here we go,

http://54.80.71.115/demo/client_side_skills_demo_JS2.html

Have fun.