A front-end web developer is someone who takes care of building the user interface of a website or a web application. He/she basically works on creating the visual part and making it dynamic in order to allow the user to interact with it.
Nowadays, front-end web development has become more complex than it was. It’s more than just HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. There are a lot of technologies you need to learn; the tasks are many as well. However, if you have the passion and discipline, you can become a successful front-end web developer.
1. How does the web work?
Before starting to learn any technologies, it is way better if you first learn the fundamentals of the web in general. Here we are learning how the web works and how it started, this is a must for every type of developer. You will need to learn about things like HTTP, domain names, hosting, browsers, and how they work.
Here is a list of some topics that you need to consider:
What is the internet?
How does the Internet work?
What is HTTP and how it evolved?
How do browsers work?
What are domain names and hosting?
How DNS works?
2. Learn the basics: HTML and CSS
HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. It is used to build the skeleton or the markup for your website. Here you need to learn the basics of HTML, but you might want to pay more attention to HTML forms as they will be fundamental in the future.
Once you have a basic understanding of HTML, you can start learning the basics of CSS. Well, CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. It is used to define how your HTML elements should look like. It is also used to make responsive layouts and it makes your webpage more beautiful as well.
CSS is easy to learn, but difficult to master. There are a few topics that you want to pay more attention to, like:
Box model: How margins, padding, and borders work together.
CSS units: Used for expressing lengths (rem , vh , and vw ).
Position: Specifies the type of positioning method. It also confuses many people so make sure you spend some time on it.
Variables: Are entities that can be reused throughout a document. This is my favourite feature in CSS. They make working with CSS so enjoyable, and you can create themes with just a few lines of code.
Media query: Decides what to show on different screen sizes. They are a key component of responsive design.
Animation: Lets an element change from one style to another. If you know how to use animation correctly, it makes your site stand out. Otherwise, it will make your website look unprofessional, so be careful.
Flexbox, CSS Grid: Used for building Responsive layouts.
I would also recommend that you learn some web and UI design fundamentals. This will give you the potential to make good looking web pages as a front-end web developer.
3. Learn to use Git and GitHub
Git is a version control system that allows you to track changes to your codebase and files over time. It allows you to go back to some previous version of the codebase without any issues. Also, it helps in collaborating with people working on the same code.
So, learn the basics of Git and how to use it in your command line. Also, create an account on GitHub and learn how to create your first repository in order to push your HTML and CSS code to it using Git. This will give you the habit of using Git and GitHub for your future projects in front-end web development.
4. Website deployment
Now that you know HTML and CSS, you can create simple web pages using these two technologies. But you will need to put them on the internet, so people can see them.
Back in the day, it was a lot more difficult to do. But now, it’s super easy and you can use tools like GitHub Pages, or Netlify.
5. JavaScript
JavaScript is the queen of web development; I cannot imagine the web without it. It’s the best programming and scripting language for web developers. You can do many things with it such as front-end, back-end, mobile apps, etc.
When it comes to JavaScript, you need to learn the basics first. Things like variables, data types, functions, arrays, objects, etc. You also need to learn about how to manipulate the DOM and many more.
Here is a list of things that you need to consider:
Syntax and Basic Construct.
Learn DOM manipulation.
Learn Fetch API/ Ajax.
ES6+.
Modular JavaScript.
Understand the concepts: Closures, Scope, Async Await, Prototype, Event Bubbling, Shadow DOM, Hoisting, Strict, and many more.
6. Learn Sass
Sass stands for Syntactically Awesome Stylesheets. It is a CSS pre-processor that makes it easier to work with CSS, reduce repetition, and save time. This will help to style your pages easily with fewer lines of code. It is like CSS with superpowers.
Sass is a powerful tool if you are working a lot with CSS. It makes your life easier, and it helps you to not repeat yourself in CSS.
7. Package managers and Web bundlers
When it comes to package managers, the first thing that comes to my mind is NPM and Yarn. So, pick one of these two and learn its basics.
A package manager is basically a tool that automates the process of installing, updating, configuring, and removing programs or projects.
After that, you need to learn about build tools. Things like task runners (NPM scripts or Gulp) and web bundlers (Webpack, or Parcel).
8. Pick a framework
After learning all the basics and tools above, you can pick any JavaScript framework. I really recommend starting with React or Vue. You can also go with Angular if that is what you want.
For React it is actually a JavaScript library for building user interfaces. It is based on components, and it has a virtual DOM which makes your web application performant and faster. Vue is also a great framework, they have an amazing community and documentation.
To summarise, choose any framework you want depending on the market in your location. In the end, they are just tools, what matters is that you know the basics (JavaScript).
You also need to learn about state management, there many tools you can use based on what framework you choose (Redux, VueX…). Here is an image below from the popular roadmap.
9. Server-side rendering and Static generators
Next.js is used for server-side rendering or generating static websites. And yes, Next.js is still quite new, but I do believe that this is the skill we must have as React developers. If you use Vue, you will need to learn about another tool called Nuxt.js which is used for server-side rendering as well. For angular, I think you will need to learn Universal.
After that, you will want to build some applications like a Job Search tool, a blog, or a Document page, etc.
10. Testing your apps
When it comes to testing, you will need to know the difference between unit, integration, and functional tests and learn how to write them.
Conclusion
As you can see, front-end web development has become complex. There are a lot of tools to learn. But if you have the passion, you can do it and become a great developer. Just practice your stuff because without practice you will never be good at what you are doing.
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