When you want to learn front-end web development, you need to know what steps to take. There’s the three different programming languages, figuring out how they work together, and how to actually make money with front-end web development skills. If you want to be a successful front-end developer, you need to know the steps you need to take and what to look out for.
Here are seven steps you need to take and how to go about taking them:
Make the mental commitment
What are you learning front-end web development for in the first place? Are you learning so you can start freelancing or start a new career? Answering these questions will help you to make the mental commitment to stick with it.
One thing no one tells you about learning front-end web development is that it takes patience. Yes, you can learn the basics pretty fast, but the real test comes after that because there are a butt-ton of things you can do afterwards.
Front-end development is shown as something that’s quick and easy to learn and that’s true to an extent. Like with any other skill, it takes a few years to really gain that proficiency with the programming languages and the intuition on how they should be used. Making that mental commitment to follow through is important if you want to get through all of this.
Start by asking yourself why you are learning this and what you want to do with this knowledge. It could be anything from making more money to getting more free time or anything else. You just need to know what your motivation is when you hit those rough patches.
Don’t ever lose track of that motivation because that’s when you’ll start to mess up and slowly drift away from web development entirely.
Start learning the basics
Once you’ve made the commitment to yourself, then you can start learning the basics. You need to learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to start working on the front-end. These three languages are used to build everything you can see online from Netflix to Google to the most obscure online store.
HTML is where you should start. If you haven’t seen code before then this is a good way to ease into it. HTML creates the structure of every single page on the internet. That’s how powerful it is. Take the time to learn it well or else you’ll be building your websites on shaky foundations.
Next is CSS. CSS is how you add styles to your web pages. It essentially makes websites pretty, visually appealing, and easy to glance through. Without CSS, it would be a lot harder to find information on any website. There are a lot of tricks to CSS so don’t be afraid to spend some time here.
The last language you need to learn for front-end web development is JavaScript. JavaScript is what makes web pages interactive. When you fill out a form or sign up with your email address, JavaScript is doing some of the work there.
JavaScript is by far the most complex language in the front-end development stack. There are SO many different features and functionalities you can create using JavaScript and even more ways you can use it to improve your websites. Please take your time here. Knowing JavaScript well is going to your biggest asset as a web developer.
Once you have learned these three programming languages, you have technically learned everything you need to know about front-end web development. It only gets more in depth from this point forward.
Practice
This is another one of those things no one tells you before you start learning front-end web development. You need to practice! If you have learned the three languages, practice will teach you how to use them. Going through a bunch of tutorials and exercises is not a substitute for getting out there and trying to make websites.
Your first web page will probably suck and that’s ok. It’s supposed to be a little wonky because you’ve never done this before. That’s why you make a second page. And a third one.
Keep making and improving web pages of your own design until you are making some great looking, interactive websites. Here’s a pro tip: if you don’t want to design a web page, try to make a copy of any website online. Work on your code until your page looks as similar to the real one as possible.
That’s one great way to practice. You could also start doing coding challenges or adding more features to your web page like pop-ups when people click on certain things or you could make a game!
How ever you decide to practice, make it fun for yourself. If you don’t want to copy boring websites, don’t! Go find better ones or design your own. You could make a little game using the front-end development stack or you could make a little animated short.
Just keep practicing. Most people make the mistake of thinking that once they finish a class they know how everything works. You won’t know how anything works in front-end web development until you start using your skills in real world situations.
Master the basics
As you continue practicing, you’ll notice that you need to start learning more advanced techniques to make your pages do what you want them to do. That means you’ll have to master the three languages. It’s not as hard as it seems.
Of course you can go through some guided classes or something like that because they are helpful. You can also just start Googling and reading stuff. If you want your website to self-destruct after a certain time, look up how to do that. Anything you want your website to do and you don’t know how to make it do that, look it up and read!
Most people sugarcoat this, but unless you are willing to look things up and read a lot, then you will have a hard time mastering these languages. There are a lot of techniques out there that you can’t find in tutorials and videos.
You have to push your glasses up and get to reading through documentation. That’s the best way to start mastering these languages. When you start reading and really soaking it in, then you’ll become something like a front-end development wizard.
Mastering anything takes time so try not to get too frustrated when you’re searching for things. That’s why practice is so important. You run into different issues that you never would have thought of if you weren’t actively using your new skills.
Do some real projects
Let me define what I mean by “real”. A real project is one that you are working on with or for someone else. It could be a freelance gig, some pro-bono work, or even at a company. The main thing is that it is a project that someone else is expecting you to be competent enough to finish.
Learning front-end web development means that you should have the competency even if you don’t have complete confidence in your skills yet. When you are working with someone else’s idea and potentially their resources, you tend to learn a lot faster and better which builds your confidence.
They push you to your limits and show you exactly where your weak points are all while pushing you to learn more as a junior front-end developer. It’s normal to feel stressed when you get your first project.
It feels like your reputation is on the line and you start to wonder if you really know enough to do this. Honestly, that’s how it’s supposed to feel. Someone will be judging the quality of your work which is a direct reflection of the quality of your skills.
Even with all of this, it’s an exciting time! It means that you are officially a front-end web developer because someone chose you to develop for them. No matter what your first project is, take some time to celebrate getting it!
Start learning JavaScript frameworks
By this point you have some real experience under your belt and you actually know what you’re doing. If you want to take your front-end skills to the next level, you should look into learning different JavaScript frameworks. Some of the popular ones at the moment are: React.js and Angular.js.
Frameworks are basically fancy JavaScript libraries that generate your HTML and CSS for you. Learning a framework will try your patience because the documentation and tutorials sometimes… lack explanations. On the other hand, once you learn how to use one of these frameworks, your value as a front-end web developer goes up.
They also make it easier for you to make web pages dynamically so you don’t have to write as much HTML or CSS for every page you create. You can reuse files and code snippets to build your entire website. If you really want to get into the higher levels of learning front-end web development, this your next step.
Stay up to date on best practices
Coding practices are always changing. The way we use HTML tags change over time, CSS layouts come and go, and JavaScript is updated from time to time. In order to stay on top of your skills, you need to keep learning. That’s the trick to front-end development you only find out after you’ve been doing it for a while.
So make sure you take this pro tip to heart. Never stop learning. The technology will move on without and your skills will become outdated if you stop learning. Being open to continuous learning is a requirement for the web development world.
What you learn now will still be relevant throughout your career or freelancing journey and you will always have the chance to learn things that will keep you relevant. The last thing you want to happen is you spend all of this time learning these three programming languages and you don’t maintain that knowledge.
Learning front-end web development is constantly changing. It slows down from time to time, but there’s always something new on the horizon. If you get good at staying on top of what’s happening, you could even start making your own frameworks for people to use! Just stay encouraged and keep learning!
Becoming a front-end web developer might sound tedious, but my goodness is it worth it!
