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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

#121

Post by vvanders »

peckrob wrote: post #103
jrm2k6 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am an avowed generalist, and I will die on that hill. Because being a generalist programmer is the greatest! :) Like I said above, code is code. Code is just syntactic sugar around concepts, and concepts transcend languages and environments. Understand the concepts and you can pretty easily jump around just about any programming environment, from front end to back end to desktop to mobile. It's kinda weird to me ho…

Yeah, one of my favorite things is to pull something from a domain that has parallels in another. What appears like magic is just having a broader exposure to various concepts and domains.

Re: Roadmap to becoming a web developer in 2019

#122

Post by [deleted] »

megaman8 wrote: post #25

Seems quite comprehensive, perhaps more than any web developer needs to know, but a good resource nonetheless. For FE, I'm glad DOM manipulation is in there somewhere. These days with modern frameworks becoming a big thing an all, I feel DOM manipulation as a skill is falling by the wayside.

[deleted]

Re: Roadmap to becoming a web developer in 2019

#123

Post by toomanybeersies »

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've been doing web development for around 3 years now. I probably don't know 50% of what's on this roadmap. Unless you're working as a sole developer on a project, you can get away with not knowing a whole lot of stuff.

I couldn't set up webpack for a project if my life depended on it. To be fair, I spend a lot more time doing back end development.

But even for the back end development pathway, I don't know anything about web sockets, GraphQL, message brokers, ElasticSearch et al, NoSQL, or caching with Memcached/Redis.

It's not that I couldn't learn how to use all of the above, but rather that it's just something I don't have to use at my job. Most employers don't/shouldn't require you to know these things in order to get a job, they are skills you can learn on the job.

The ability to learn is the most important skill an employee can have. The rest is just decoration.

Re: Roadmap to becoming a web developer in 2019

#124

Post by 5_minutes »

There are some basics you need to know: css/html/sql/php (or python)

Depending on your goal, the thing is that none of these you need to know as an expert, but need to know the knowledge to collaborate with other people on it.

But yes, the times that you could make “top notch” websites on your own: doing a photoshop design, doing the css/html and code it in bare php are over :)

This diagram is scrary and gives a feeling of overkill.

Re: Roadmap to becoming a web developer in 2019

#125

Post by rue »

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…

Have you considered how, say, a recruiter might view your CV differently from someone just getting started?

Re: Roadmap to becoming a web developer in 2019

#126

Post by BigJono »

jen729w wrote: post #86
com2kid wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll argue that over 6 months or so, a new web developer will pick most of this up. e.g. webpack, I ended up getting it setup because 90% of the tutorials out there use it. Same thing for NPM scripts, use NPM, you figure out 'npm run' pretty quick. It isn't learned per se, it is just sort of acquired. Same thing for eslint, most tutorials start off with "ok now install eslint and use these rules" If you use react, yo…

As someone who started learning JS in October ‘17 and is now reasonably good at React, this resonates with me. Yeah sure, I know a bunch of stuff on that list. SemVer? Yeah, I get what the numbers mean. I google the ^x.x.x syntax, whatever. ESLint, Prettier, yep, install and drop a .config file somewhere. Copy someone else’s. It’s hardly rocket science. Webpack, I know that it exists and as soon as the defaults insta…

I don't think this does that well at all. 70% of the stuff on there is textbook "hip and trendy".

If you want to know what to learn, learn web fundamentals. Learn the Web APIs and everything that's been standardized in HTML, CSS and JS. Learn relational databases. Etc. Learn how to build your graphics using SVG. Learn how to do your animations with CSS. Hell, if that's too boring learn WebGL and WebAssembly. They may not be ready, tested or in vogue, but they'll be here for the long haul. Screw libraries that abstract over this stuff. If you don't learn from the ground up you're putting your future career in the hands of things that may end up being ephemeral. Stuff like React, Sass, D3 etc might seem like safe bets, but so did jQuery at one stage.

Just, be aware that your goals as a developer are sometimes at odds with the goals of your employer or even the community as a whole. There's a lot of pressure to get up to speed and be productive as quick as possible. You can see this in things like the React docs, which encourage you to ignore language features and just memorise patterns.

Re: Roadmap to becoming a web developer in 2019

#127

Post by jen729w »

BigJono wrote: post #126
jen729w wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who started learning JS in October ‘17 and is now reasonably good at React, this resonates with me. Yeah sure, I know a bunch of stuff on that list. SemVer? Yeah, I get what the numbers mean. I google the ^x.x.x syntax, whatever. ESLint, Prettier, yep, install and drop a .config file somewhere. Copy someone else’s. It’s hardly rocket science. Webpack, I know that it exists and as soon as the defaults insta…

I don't think this does that well at all. 70% of the stuff on there is textbook "hip and trendy". If you want to know what to learn, learn web fundamentals. Learn the Web APIs and everything that's been standardized in HTML, CSS and JS. Learn relational databases. Etc. Learn how to build your graphics using SVG. Learn how to do your animations with CSS. Hell, if that's too boring learn WebGL and WebAssembly. They may…

This is real nice as a philosophy, and I fundamentally agree.

But I want to get stuff made. I have ideas, I have a thing I want to make. Would I like to really deeply properly fundamentally understand JavaScript? Sure! Do I have time, with my actual real job and friends and life and other hobbies? Nope. Thank goodness, then, for React. It's a godsend.

(Also, I have no desire to "work" as a developer for someone else as my salaried job. Perhaps that affects my outlook.)

Re: Roadmap to becoming a web developer in 2019

#128

Post by MuffinFlavored »

wasted_intel wrote: post #114
sudofail wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

I think they might be overstimulated.

Hello, world from a compiler in a terminal is a good start.

You should show them how many lines of code a web browser is and say "here is what it takes to get

Hello!

on the page" lol

Scare everybody away :)

Re: Roadmap to becoming a web developer in 2019

#129

Post by dwd »

peckrob wrote: post #103
jrm2k6 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am an avowed generalist, and I will die on that hill. Because being a generalist programmer is the greatest! :) Like I said above, code is code. Code is just syntactic sugar around concepts, and concepts transcend languages and environments. Understand the concepts and you can pretty easily jump around just about any programming environment, from front end to back end to desktop to mobile. It's kinda weird to me ho…

Maybe it's time to put our old "webmaster" hats back on.

Generalist or polyglot developer still doesn't fully capture the broad scope of knowledge you can call on beyond cutting code and may have lost any of its negative connotations over the last 23 years.

Re: Roadmap to becoming a web developer in 2019

#130

Post by BigJono »

sneakernets wrote: post #101

If you want to be a web dev startup hipster, this list is for you!

The ironic thing is that your average JS toolbox has the power to sink a startup. You need to be able to iterate fast by utilizing the basics. When you're brand new and facing 30 competitors you're going to get rolled by the 2-man team that doesn't waste all their time burdening themselves with all this bullshit. Meanwhile the other 28 are probably busy reading these flowcharts, doing resume driven design, and speaking at low tier JS conferences.
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