Step-by-Step Guide to becoming a freelance web developer
One of the most in-demand and trending IT skills nowadays is web development. An increasing trend has been witnessed for jobs and demand of web developers in recent years. If you have chosen web development as your CS specialty, kudos to you, you have probably made the first step right. But there’s always confusion among beginners on how to get started with it and what path is to be followed. This article aims to let beginners know what path I took to take me where I am today (as a successful web developer).
- Start with Frontend development:
This might be a point of debate, but as an experienced web developer, I feel any beginner should first get used to front-end development basics before deep-diving into back-end development.
Having some basic experience with HTML and CSS would just be the right step to take to begin with. There are multiple free sources as well as paid sources to get used to HTML and CSS which are both front-end markup and stylesheet languages respectively.
I personally got used to these from a Udemy course by an instructor named Rob Percival. If you are hesitant to buy the course, I didn’t buy it either, I got it from a friend. If you are willing to, you will definitely find it somewhere other than Udemy too :) although youtube and websites like W3Schools are enough too.
2. Don’t skip Javascript:
A common mistake among beginners is to skip the part that seems uninteresting and complex at the first glance, which is the exact adjectives I would use for Javascript as a beginner. Javascript, commonly pronounced as JS, is a programming language that is used in both frontend and backend development. Although there are multiple options to go with for backend development other than javascript, you will almost surely use it in the front end. So, JS would be the right skill to upgrade after HTML and CSS as a web developer.
3. Make sure to do projects on the way:
Another important action is to do projects sidewise as you upgrade these skills. It might seem easy as you go along with the instructor and the course, but once you start building on your own, it’s a whole different thing. Small and basic projects are a must to get yourself really going with development and as you go on with projects, you will feel satisfied and confident too. Never feel demotivated while getting stuck on projects which you surely will, remember you are still learning.
4. Get used to database management:
There are several databases that you might choose from, but the ones that are most used and trending are MongoDB, Postgresql, Firebase, Mysql, etc. Any database management skill is good to go with, but I would encourage you to choose the latest and trending database that has a promised future. In my opinion, that would be MongoDB, it is easy to learn and use, more flexible and robust, and very convenient to handle. But this is a very relative thing to agree on, so go on and explore a number of them before choosing one.
5. Choose the right language for back end development:
Up to this point, you will already be quite familiar with this field and would be skilled enough to be called a front-end developer based on the magnitude of your skills and experience. It’s your choice after this if you want to continue with front-end development and get your hands on front-end frameworks to be more flexible with your skills or in another case if you want to learn back-end development and be a full stack developer. We will be talking about the latter case in this section.
There are several options to choose a language/framework in back-end development, the most famous ones being, Javascript (Node.js), Python (Django/Flask), Ruby (Ruby on Rails), Java(Spring), etc.
Based on several factors like personal choice, interest, recent trends, ease of doing, and spread of community, I chose to learn back-end in javascript(Node.js/Express) language. But all the ones mentioned above in the article and some others are also perfect to move with. It all comes down to personal choice and experience. I had done some work with javascript in the past so I chose it. A friend of mine was a python programmer so he went with Python. Just keep in mind to check the latest trends and demand in your respective area to get on with one language.
6. Bonus section for useful applications, websites, and resources:
The most useful applications that I came across in web development were VS CODE as text-editor, POSTMAN to create, share, test, and document APIs, and to save HTTP(s) requests.
The most useful websites to help you during projects and otherwise,
W3schools, Code academy, tutorials point, and most importantly STACK OVERFLOW in case you ever get stuck somewhere in code.
The best resources I found to learn these skills are Udemy courses and my favorite instructors are Rob Percival, Jonas Schemdtmann, and Maximillian SchwarzMuller. The best youtube channels are Coder Coder, Hitesh Choudhary, Programming with Mosh, Web Dev Simplified, etc.
Best of luck, peeps :)
