How to Get Started as a Web Developer

So you want to be a web developer? There are two things you need to do:

  1. learn things
  2. build things

The best part is, you can do both at the same time!

You should be building with every new thing you learn.

There are a lot of paths you can go, but learning JavaScript is essential. It's not going anywhere, every browser supports it, and will continue to support it.

It's the foundation on which many other web frameworks are built.

If you know JavaScript, you already know half of React, Cue, Next, whatever.

Create an account at GitHub or BitBucket.

GitHub is the standard but if you want to "stick it to the man", I've heard BitBucket is a decent alternative. Learn git basics so you can start publishing everything you build here.

Once you know some basics and know how to upload, just start building! Build, build, build.

Your early stuff will be crappy, but you'll learn with every new project you do! I've been doing web design and development for a long time and still learn new things with every new thing I work on.

After you've built some cool things with JavaScript and feel familiar with it, learn a framework.

I recommend ReactJS because it's easy to get started, has a lot of free tutorials, is super popular, and has a huge community to learn from.