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Roadmap to becoming a web developer in 2019

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Re: Roadmap to becoming a web developer in 2019

#111

Post by z3t4 »

jaredcwhite wrote: post #34

I was convinced for a while there as I scrolled down that this was a joke. "Good parody!" I thought to myself. Then I realized to my horror this is actually serious. As a web developer since 1997, currently working in both the Rails & JAMstack spaces, I can assure any and all beginners out there you don't need to know anything about at least 50% of this stuff, probably closer to 70%. I also deeply resent the notion t…

I think if you spend like 2000 hours in a narrow field, that is enough to become an expert. Given 20 years of experience you will of course be an "expert" on many things.

Btw that is some sweet looking graphs, but I think they would be even nicer if they where SVG instead of binary png's.

Re: Roadmap to becoming a web developer in 2019

#112

Post by a-priori »

ashelmire wrote: post #65
a-priori wrote: post #53

I've worked as a web developer for about half of the last fifteen years, and work as a senior front-end developer at a large web-focused company (Shopify). So I guess I'm fairly good at it? Here's a list of things I have never even heard of just from the "Front-end Roadmap" section: BEM, OOCSS, SMACSS, Bulma, JSCS, ngrx, Vuex, Ava, Protractor, Cypress, Emotion, Radium, Glamorous, After.js, Universal, Nuxt.js, Carlo.…

I haven't heard of any of those except BEM. Which you are using at Shopify, you just might not know it's called that. And it's not really a tech, it's just the style of naming css classes, "block element modifier" like on your home page: "marketing-form__fallback-cta" - marketing-form is the block, "__fallback-cta" is the element (only has meaning within the block), and if you had something like "--purplesmoke" that…

Ah, thanks! Yes, in that case I have actually heard of BEM before then because I've followed that convention on a few projects.

Re: Roadmap to becoming a web developer in 2019

#113

Post by jenscow »

jrm2k6 wrote: post #70
peckrob wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also deeply resent the notion that you have to "choose a path." Yup. Been doing this since 1999. The whole "front end"/"back end" thing is an incredibly unrealistic and unnecessary division. Real life work is much more complicated and nuanced than that. I don't know of anyone, maybe outside of (as you said) huge companies, who works that way, having "picked a path" and entirely focusing on one side of the stack.…

This is interesting. The whole having to specialize thing has been scaring me a bit lately as I really do like the fact I can be jumping back and forth between the paths when working. I have been told that I should find something to specialize in as most of the companies require you to be specialized and there is no place for generalists anymore, which sounds weird to me. So are you a specialist in anything? It seems…

It strongly depends on the company you [want to] work for - also depends on what you actually enjoy.

At a smaller companies go for breadth; there's only a few of you. Larger companies prefer depth - but! at larger companies there can be more projects for you to have your fingers in.

Depending on specialisation, work can be rare but more rewarding - but you can also paint yourself into a corner with things moving out of vogue. Silverlight/flash, Ruby, VB, etc.

I've been at it since the 90s. I'm a generalist, mastered a few areas, and worked in. It gives me choices - I where to go for a web-based job, I'd call myself a web developer and not boast no much about my C knowledge.

At my current job, most the skills I provide aren't necessarily rare, but the combination of them is - where it could take 2+ people to replace me (excluding productivity).

The balance is to specialise enough in a few areas, but not be a "jack of all trades; master of none"

Re: Roadmap to becoming a web developer in 2019

#114

Post by wasted_intel »

sudofail wrote: post #42
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mentioning SQL means backend which implies they need to understand that a network connection is incoming to a server bound on a port with a method, URL, list of cookies/headers, etc. with the purpose of serving a request with a response CORS potentially might be worth mentioning to get a beginner familiar with security (why can't I just scrape Facebook cookies from my personal website), yada yada. I think that's kind…

I completely agree. The basics of networking, sockets, and the like are probably better taught before frameworks even come into the picture. To me, the idea is to get a shallow understanding of everything involved from hitting a page, submitting some data, and having it be displayed back to you. Once you have that picture in your mind, adding things like frameworks, git, docker, etc, will be easier for the person to…

While I agree that knowledge of what's below those abstractions is important, you also need to cater to your audience. Getting something working on the screen in front of you is exciting for new folks; lining up little victories with increasing complexity feels like a path that would be more enjoyable to follow. As long as the person maintains a curiosity about the underlying technology, they can work down into the lower layers as their interest dictates.

Re: Roadmap to becoming a web developer in 2019

#115

Post by dwaltrip »

Very thorough with a nice visual design.

The major issue with this roadmap is that many of the listed items are not necessary for a junior web developer, can be learned later on, or not at all, etc. I don't see any distinction between these different categories of topics.

You only need to master the fundamentals of a small subset of the graphic to get your first job as a web developer.

Re: Roadmap to becoming a web developer in 2019

#116

Post by hombre_fatal »

peckrob wrote: post #57
jaredcwhite wrote: post #34

I was convinced for a while there as I scrolled down that this was a joke. "Good parody!" I thought to myself. Then I realized to my horror this is actually serious. As a web developer since 1997, currently working in both the Rails & JAMstack spaces, I can assure any and all beginners out there you don't need to know anything about at least 50% of this stuff, probably closer to 70%. I also deeply resent the notion t…

> I also deeply resent the notion that you have to "choose a path." Yup. Been doing this since 1999. The whole "front end"/"back end" thing is an incredibly unrealistic and unnecessary division. Real life work is much more complicated and nuanced than that. I don't know of anyone, maybe outside of (as you said) huge companies, who works that way, having "picked a path" and entirely focusing on one side of the stack.…

> The whole "front end"/"back end" thing is an incredibly unrealistic and unnecessary division.

Well, one is client development and the other is server application development.

Pretty big differences there even though there may be some overlap, like the server being able to render HTML which is a unique feature of web clients. I'd cluster "web client development" with iOS and Android development, not with server application development.

Too many people dump on front-end development without realizing that client development isn't easy on any platform, and they all require credentialization in apis or design patterns with major warts.

Re: Roadmap to becoming a web developer in 2019

#118

Post by nogbit »

Following this chart would be the anti-pattern to KISS.

Instead, learn how to ask people "what sucks the most?" and then go and build solutions.

I've been doing that for more than 20 years for CxO's, product owners, developers themselves and consumers. One thing that has been constant is the solution is always different and the technology and tools come and go.

I would also add understanding the underlying protocols will help you immensely in any front/back/ops/busdev roles. They stick around a whole lot longer than tooling or frameworks/abstractions.

Re: Roadmap to becoming a web developer in 2019

#119

Post by Novashi »

peckrob wrote: post #57
jaredcwhite wrote: post #34

I was convinced for a while there as I scrolled down that this was a joke. "Good parody!" I thought to myself. Then I realized to my horror this is actually serious. As a web developer since 1997, currently working in both the Rails & JAMstack spaces, I can assure any and all beginners out there you don't need to know anything about at least 50% of this stuff, probably closer to 70%. I also deeply resent the notion t…

> I also deeply resent the notion that you have to "choose a path." Yup. Been doing this since 1999. The whole "front end"/"back end" thing is an incredibly unrealistic and unnecessary division. Real life work is much more complicated and nuanced than that. I don't know of anyone, maybe outside of (as you said) huge companies, who works that way, having "picked a path" and entirely focusing on one side of the stack.…

The division of labor depends on how tickets are split up and that’s an organizational specific thing.

Re: Roadmap to becoming a web developer in 2019

#120

Post by huebnerob »

sudofail wrote: post #12

I'm currently teaching my brother web development and I guarantee if I were to show him this, he'd just quit. This is way too much information. All a beginner needs to know is JS and the basics of HTML/CSS/SQL. If they have a mentor, the mentor should draw out and explain how frontend, backend and databases relate, and the general lifecycle of a request to a webpage. That's all you really need to start building stuff…

I don't think the author is suggesting that you need to 100% complete this entire prescriptive road map to start working as a web developer. This is more an illustration of the journey that a developer might take from zero knowledge to roughly mid-level. If you look at the key, you'll see that a lot of boxes are actually just his 'suggested options', not mandatory requirements.
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