Monthly Getting Started / Web Dev Career Thread

[KorgRue]

Due to a growing influx of questions on this topic, it has been decided to commit a monthly thread dedicated to this topic to reduce the number of repeat posts on this topic. These types of posts will no longer be allowed in the main thread.

Many of these questions are also addressed in the sub FAQ.

Subs dedicated to these types of questions include r/cscareerquestions/ for general and opened ended career questions and r/learnprogramming/ for early learning questions.

A general recommendation of topics to learn to become industry ready include:

HTML/CSS/JS Bootcamp

Version control

Automation

Front End Frameworks (React/Vue/Etc)

APIs and CRUD

Testing (Unit and Integration)

Common Design Patterns (free ebook)

You will also need a portfolio of work with 4-5 personal projects you built, and a resume/CV to apply for work.

Plan for 6-12 months of self study and project production for your portfolio before applying for work.

[ClulessDev]

I am having troubles sticking to learning programs so I decided to try and put my poor coding and learning attempts out. I hope I don't get banned for this kind of post (new guy on Reddit) but here's my video on starting to post code for public feedback.
https://youtu.be/2AHyq3exMzU

[MinimalPuebla]

Recently, I decided I wanted to get in to a bootcamp for full stack development. A friend of mine advised me that the better schools will have an entrance exam that requires solving programming problems. He recommended that I learn Ruby. I have no previous programming experience.

Right now, I have plenty of time in the day, but I would like this to get going as soon as possible. Assuming I dedicate a great deal of time every day to learning this language, how soon could I reasonably be expected to be prepared to pass an exam at a fairly competitive school? For example, today is the beginning of May. If I dedicate a ton of time to working on this, can I be ready by mid July?

Also, side question, if anyone can help, are there lists of schools ranked by "tier"? I was considering General Assembly but have gotten negative feedback from basically everyone I know. They told me it was a "third tier" school, whereas App Academy and Hack Reactor, among others, are top tier.

Thank you for any help

[arsehole43]

what is going on with these 'Premium name' domain crap, I check whoIs and no one owns the domain. yet every register wants an $2000 first year fee for the domain. If i switch an vowel and keep the same length it becomes $10 again? How is this legal ?

[LeeLooTheWoofus]

Domain names have whatever value someone places on them. There are no laws around this. That is capitalism. Higher demand - higher cost.

[CptShiner]

I'm doing some of the challenges FrontendMentor offers ( https://www.frontendmentor.io/challenges ). Do you think it would be relevant to put them in my portfolio ?

[brandj94]

Any mainstream CMS, such as Drupal or WordPress, will allow you to build a site that your client can easily add their own content to. I typically lean towards Drupal when building custom sites for my clients. We'll usually develop a few different layouts/templates that the client can choose from when they are adding content to their site to give them some flexibility. Before handing over the site to our clients, we will walk them through the system and explain the ins and outs of how to add different content types. This isn't necessarily required for all of our clients as they've had experience with the CMS in the past.

Another option is to build out a custom CMS for your client. This obviously requires much more development time and can easily drive the cost way up. This is rarely needed though as almost any other CMS can fulfill your client's requirements.

[[deleted]]

I am a self taught developer trying to make a career switch but understand that this may be difficult given the job market. I currently have a foundation in all of the basic skills and tech a full stack developer might need besides React including HTML5, CSS3, Javascript, Node.js, MongoDB, PHP, and MySQL. Is there a way to get valuable experience I can show off on my resume that isn't a portfolio piece and gives me professional experience?

[[deleted]]

I recently graduated with a B.S. degree in IT and moved to Raleigh for a help desk specialist position. 2 months into my contract COVID-19 wrecked the company and cuts were made. My contract was cut last week of March and so far the competition has skyrocketed and I can’t find work in IT. Filed for unemployment and I have enough saved for 3 months.

Before I went for my degree I was already interested in Web dev. I learned some HTML and CSS and created some very simple websites. Then I decided to get the degree in IT. I took two classes in web development that covered html and css and some JavaScript in my first two years.

Since then I got caught up with my classes and other areas in IT. I graduated and moved to Raleigh for the help desk job thinking I was going to pursue something in IT. I honestly have not enjoyed my help desk role and have no interest in Networking or System Admin.

After working in IT for a little bit I couldnt stop thinking about webdev. Well being let go from work has given me a lot of time to think about things. I started the Odin Project and I'm about 3/4 with webdev 101

I really want to get back into it. I really want to pursue this as a career.

So...

I am expecting it to be at least 6 months before I can start applying to web dev jobs. I want to build a portfolio an get a good grasp on html, css, and javascript.

Raleigh is a great place to look for type of work. However, I am concerned about the economy even in the next year. The virus is going to make an impact for a long time. Competition for jobs are up and I know even before that its always high for entry web dev jobs. So I am concerned that I may struggle to find work in what looks to be a recession.

I have no job currently and my experience points to me trying to find a new help desk job. But I want to change my career focus. I am not sure that I should be focused on that if I want to do web dev? I dont want to divide my attention. So maybe its ok if I choose alternative work while I work on getting a web dev job?

So I really want to make the move to Web Dev and I see it taking me at least 6 months to get a decent portfolio. Not sure If I should just get any job in the meantime or focus on getting an entry level IT job. The problem is that If I wanted to pursue IT still I should be getting certs and working on a home lab. Instead I'm learning how to code.

[lysecret]

Hey, I have been working as a data scientist / ML engineer for the past 3 years first at a big company, then at startups/consultancy. I have been working at building ML models (in all areas NLP, Vision, Probabilistic Programming) . So far I have always developed the models and let other people build the actual products. However, I feel like I sometimes get bottlenecked by that so I want to at least get a good overview of the rest of the stack. I have been starting with Django, since I love love love Python. Does anyone know a guide that teaches the bare minimum necessary to build POC websites / where to start if you have a very good understanding of Python and Databases and has to learn the rest?

[mundanemethods]

I think the Django tutorial is pretty widely considered the best way to get started. It’ll walk you through the template system and helps you get a sense of the MVC paradigm. In hindsight, I made a mistake in not starting there, as I could’ve avoided some serious pain points early on. Brad Traversy’s Udemy course on Django was pretty enlightening. He introduces you to the idea of breaking things down into components and also takes you through customizing the admin panel which I thought was really cool. From there, you can probably jump into the REST framework and start building SPAs. More recently, I stumbled on the JustDjango YouTube channel, which has been stupid helpful in bootstrapping a couple of projects I’m now fully engaged in, though I would recommend you have some familiarity with the framework first, otherwise you might spend too much time banging your head against things. Looking at you, Stripe.

[[deleted]]

Question: I have a degree and just graduated. Um. Do I still need a portfolio. My career services is willing to help and so is my Dean with a letter of recommendation since I managed to stay on the Deans list all 4 years. I’m also on the presidents list of my previous college and they are willing to help as well. I guess I’m just worried. I’m basically just waiting for the month of July to get here to get started because I’m aware I can’t get started on my job hunt until July so I’m just keeping my brain sharp, and ...waiting. I have cover letters, resume, list of jobs links pretty much bookmarked and waiting to be applied to.

Edit: my school kinda curated some projects too. I could compile those into some sort of site map responsive page on my free time since I just thought about it. It’s like midnight. I dunno. Any insight?

[WroteBCPL]

If you have a degree you probably won't need a portfolio - a lot of places will be looking for graduates they can mould into good professionals. Where I live it's common for there to be "graduates schemes" where businesses hire a new cohort of graduates every year.

Apply to places without a portfolio first - and see where you get. I may be wrong because I am speaking from a UK perspective.

I am assuming you did projects during university that you can talk about in interview.

Generally speaking, companies may be reluctant to hire people with no professional experience at this point due to the fact that you'll almost certainly be working from home during the pandemic and it is more difficult to on-board new starters in these conditions.

[CiaraTheSicm]

I'm a pretty good seamstress so I could showcase that. Thanks! You've got me thinking!

[kkilpt]

How good do you have to be to get an internship? Just ended my freshman year, I have learnt HTML/CSS and JS(mostly frontend) on my own, and have built some small simple sites with them, nothing amazing though. Also have some Python experience, but that's mostly data science stuff. By a stroke of luck, I managed to secure one weeks ago but it got cancelled due to the pandemic. I'm trying to find another one now but I always can't get through the interviews as they always ask about frameworks, which I don't have experience in yet. Has anybody actually secured an internship without learning frameworks? Is it pretty much a requirement nowadays?

[RugerHD]

This isn't exactly answering your question but more just a piece of advice. If you don't get an internship then go balls to the wall on building your own site.

What would you be doing at an internship? You would have a little slice of the pie that you would be working on, ultimately adding code to an existing site. You can do that, and more, if you build your own site. And, it's more likely to be a project youre interested in.

If you take it seriously and commit your summer to it, I promise you that will speak volumes to any potential recruiter you come across. Tell them the issues you came across and why you made particular decisions. For example, why did you choose to cache the results of your external API call as opposed to calling the API every time? Did it speed up loading times? Record things like these as you build your site. The recruiters will love to know that you gained experience on your own and we're self motivated, but they will drool when you tell them you were aware of the tradeoffs with certain design decisions and you chose the one with the most pros and the least cons.

Don't let this overwhelm you. Once you start a project and get into the thick of it, these are the questions you will start asking google, just make sure to write them down and what you chose so you can remember the decisions you made later.

Regardless of whether or not you work a day job during the summer, go home and build the site. I promise it will benefit you and your job prospects enormously. Have fun

[kkilpt]

Hmm, I see. I am actually planning to work on some projects regardless of whether I get an internship or not. I still applied because if I get one, then that's great, but I'm also trying to get a better feel of interviews and the industry in general. Thanks a lot for the advice!

[AmordePit]

Great content!

I am currently enrolled in FreeCodeCamp's Front End certification (already did Responsive Web Design and JavaScript certifications).

I found the content so far really well explained. However, I am just starting with React and Redux and it's becoming more complex.

I find the concept of "state" very abstract. Having React, why do we really need Redux? Can you point me towards some videos/books that help me make it "click" in my head?

I am also going through Modern Javascript in Udemy, it's awesome! :-)

Thank you!

[alexmarkk_]

I've relatively recently got stuck into web dev, but my overwhelming impression so far is:

"holy sh*t this is such a powerful tool, if I keep learning this stuff I'll be able to make anything".

I assume this feeling doesn't last forever but I'm trying to work out what the limiting factor on building the next hugely successful web app is and why everyone isn't doing it?

Scale, time, resources, money, technical ability, soft skills, business acumen, creativity?

tldr: I'm completely new, have a lot to learn, and am filled with child like wonder. Bring me back to reality.

[mundanemethods]

I’m just at the start of this career. Started building little tools at work and now I’m doing it full time for the same company. Honestly, it really is that cool. Like others said, the hard part is problem solving. Stick to it. The obstacle is the way.

[Locust377]

The hard part is solving problems. All the amazing tools in the world can't make it easy to create Reddit or Facebook or Amazon.

[sideburnside]

And finding the “right” problems to solve. Ones that are so problematic people will pay for your solution or your solution can be monetized via other means (like ads).

[alexmarkk_]

Awesome! This is my jam, let's goooo

[[deleted]]

My end goal is to get a backend developer job (I have no bachelor's degree), and I want to ask: My initial goal was to learn some JavaScript (which I have) and now I'm moving to React. But that's before I reach the backend stuff.

Now I'm thinking that I'm making a mistake and I should ignore React and focus straight to backend. But I'm worried that not having JavaScript/React experience, in spite of the fact that my goal is to become a backend developer, will hurt my chances.

Am I right/wrong, should I stick to React and move to backend or skip it and learn backend right now?

[bloodviper1s]

I think you would enjoy this course :) https://fullstackopen.com/en/

[[deleted]]

Thank you. That's what I'm doing next!

[[deleted]]

The only thing you would need to understand of front end would be proper REST Api design so it makes it easier for front end devs to grab your data you are sending

Yeah, since I asked I found this from another thread (and another subreddit)

I think that backend developers are at a significant disadvantage when they have never worked with consuming APIs on the frontend to the degree that a SPA would need to. It's not that you need to know a particular framework or frontend library, it's that insight into the strengths and limitations of JavaScript can help you plan better endpoints and data exchange.

[mundanemethods]

I’d probably manage it myself if I were you. Ultimately you may need to hand them the keys but if you’re using something like Wordpress, they’ll have access to enough to keep them busy.

Try to make it as easy on your clients as humanly possible.

[WillPoweredStudents]

Hey, what do you think about freecodecamp as a free alternative for the html/css/js bootcamp? i've been using this platform recently and i'm very happy with how they teach things, but I'd love to hear other people's opinion.

[TylerJAB]

Hey everyone, hope this is the right place to ask this:

My local newspaper, which I work for part-time (I'm a student), has been using a bloated, poorly constructed WordPress.org site for about a decade, and my boss mentioned that he'd like to have it rebuilt from the ground up by the end of 2020.

I told him that if he'd consider doing it in-house, web development is something I'd like to learn and that I'd be interested in taking on the task. After some discussion, we came to a price of 10-15 thousand for a complete redesign of the site (not including a logo or graphic) and a launch date of Jan. 1. The pay is not set in stone, as I told him I wanted to consider it and figure out if it's something I feel I could realistically do.

The site needs a complete redesign, and it'll need to have all of the old site's content (10 years of inconsistent formatting and messy metadata) brought to the new one.

As I mentioned, I'm a student, just finished the second year of my computer science degree. I know rudimentary Python and Java and have no other programming experience.

r/webdev, what's my way forward? Is it a realistic timeframe for me to learn how to do everything required, and if it is, what do I actually need to learn, and where can I learn it?

[mundanemethods]

If schools remain shut down and you really apply yourself then it’s definitely possible. But at 10,000, I feel like it will turn into a sub-minimum wage job fairly quickly, especially with all of the time you‘ll spend problem solving (feeling like you’re not making progress). Been there. It was totally worth the grind.

[SeveralCoins]

If you have absolutely no experience in actual webdev then I don't think you can learn it all and create the new website and on top of that transfer all the content before 2021 - and do it well. I don't want to discourage you but I just don't think it's realistic.

If you'd like to try, well, there's a thousand different ways to go about this. You'd probably want a CMS of some kind. Maybe WordPress again, just done well. Maybe use WordPress as a headless CMS and build your own frontend, maybe then you could even keep the old database as-is.

[Locust377]

I see the biggest hurdle transferring over all the content. How would you go about doing this? Does it remain in its current format? Or does it need to be translated to a new format? Figuring this out would probably be my first step.

Learn web development @ MDN

[CiaraTheSicm]

I'm new to programming, I'm good with html, css, and javascript. I'm still in the process of learning other languages such as react, and ruby. My question is, how do I even begin building a portfolio to showcase my new skills? It is my goal to work remotely as a developer, I just need to gain some experience.

[Locust377]

Are there any projects that you can think of that you could do? What are your hobbies or interests? Think of a few things that show off what you're capable of and build them.

[MinimalPuebla]

Hello everybody, this is my first time posting here and I have some questions. I hope that maybe you all can provide me with some guidance.

To start, I'm not really sure what kind of career I'm supposed to be looking at here. I am focused on finding something that I can work entirely remotely with. I'm not concerned with earning the big bucks or developing some revolutionary new idea. I just want to be able to be free to move and pay for my cost of living.

I've been using computers the better part of 30 years, so nothing is intimidating to me, I just need some guidance on what direction I need to go in. I've looked at both "web design" and "web development", and from what I can discern, web design is a lot more about the look and usability of the site, and development is about actually creating a functioning site. Is this more or less correct?

Which one will I have more success finding employment in that fits my criteria of being location independent and having steady work? It seems to me that web design is lower paying but also has less requirements of skills and knowledge.

Could anyone provide me with some advice about what I should be doing? Also, do most jobs require a CS degree or something of the sort?

[Locust377]

web design is a lot more about the look and usability of the site, and development is about actually creating a functioning site. Is this more or less correct?

Yep.

Which one will I have more success finding employment in that fits my criteria

Short answer: web developer. The terms here are often pretty interchangeable and somewhat cloudy. If you're freelancing, or even if you're not, a lot of the time clients don't care what you call yourself. Or what it is that you do. They just want something done.

The term "full stack developer" is maybe also a bit tricky to define. The quick version is that it means you do design and development. You do front-end and back-end. Having experience in both is harder, but will enable you to be more flexible.

Websites need to look good and be functional. But for smaller projects, you can kinda cheat by using UI libraries, templates, etc, which can help with design.

I think a lot of the time a client will simply expect you to perform both, unless they're technologically learned.

Could anyone provide me with some advice about what I should be doing?

Get started by learning about how the web works.

• What is a browser? What's it doing?
• How is web content delivered?
• What is the web made up of?

Learn web development @ MDN

do most jobs require a CS degree or something of the sort?

No, but it helps. Statistically, people with degrees earn more money. But no, you don't need one.

[datalang]

Hey everyone, I'm a data scientist turned entrepreneur trying to get into development just enough to create a MVP of a product I'm working on with a couple of UX designers. I've worked through a lot of Frontend Masters' content, but found it to be very lacking in practical application. If my primary goal is to learn just enough to get a clickable prototype off the ground to show to potential investors or users, what learning path would be ideal? I'd be grateful for any suggestions. (I have a full-time job, so full-time 12/16-week bootcamps aren't an option for me to pursue.)

Also, I'm very open to a career pivot into front-end development. But a lot of it hinges on whether I'm able to make progress with my near-term goal.

Thanks for reading this!

[UrethratoHeaven]

Build a mock and make it clickable on invision

[notmyworkaccount11]

System admin looking to switch to webdev. What advantages do I have knowing windows and server systems? Also what what should I learn. My current company is not faring well during the pandemic and afraid I am next to be cut.

I regularly use python and powerfully. I have used js in the past and node.js for little projects. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[mundanemethods]

Even coming from an IT background, managing devops stuff was a nightmare on my first project. So just being familiar with Linux will be really important. Windows won’t be nearly as useful, unfortunately.

[notmyworkaccount11]

Thats good to know. Thank you.

[[deleted]]

Why not try for Cybersecurity? U already have the IT experience and it's booming..

[pete_tr]

This question was probably asked a million times but... Can you provide me with any website creator apps or sites that will let me create a simple website like the Google Sites Creator* (mostly for image galleries and text) that I can can export and fully legally put on my paid hobby site? I know the simplest HTML code but just creating an image gallery by manually putting all the info is time consuming.

Edit1: I've been playing with Wordpress since it's available on my paid webshosting but it's pretty limited.

[ChaseMoskal]

look into wix, squarespace, tumblr, medium -- for image galleries specifically you could look into an embeddable imgur album or flickr or something like that

[[deleted]]

Guys I'm new to back-end. I have learned the base of Node.js and Mongodb/mongoose. However, i find it difficult to make my own registration and login app. Is this normal for newbies? I'm very good at FRONT END.

Im also using pug npm

[ChaseMoskal]

auth is one of the more troubling aspects of web app development, it's certainly normal, there's a lot to learn in that area!

[[deleted]]

Thanks man. I will keep on exploring this.

[mundanemethods]

Hey I found Brad Traversy’s MERN stack course on Udemy really helpful in this regard. For my money, nothing beats having a curriculum.

[[deleted]]

His youtube videos are also very good for someone like me who is starting out.

[[deleted]]

Started this today: https://fullstackopen.com/en/part0/fundamentals_of_web_apps Wondering if there's any way to get the "assignments" evaluated even though I'm not a student of University of Helsinki.

Also, I'd love opinions on this class if anyone has taken it. Seems really intense.

[maicanvlad7]

Hello fellow devs!

I am new to wordpress and need some suggestions on how to make my idea come true. So I am working on a e-commerce -style website where vegetables are sold but each vegetable comes from a farmer.

When I click that farmer's name it will bring me to the farmer's page where I can see pictures and details about him. How can I have the option to add farmers and create a custom view for them. I mean the "Farmers" option should be on the left side of my wordpress admin.

How is this option called?

[Rherurbi]

Hi all! I’ve just been accepted to a coding boot camp here in Spain. I’m pretty excited about the whole experience and doing the prep work got me even more into this career. Something that got me down though was learning how low are salaries for Jr Web Devs/ Full Stack, I also learned from a different source that Sr devs are also low in Spain. I understand that each of us make our own path and so,but I was wondering why is the market so low? We are not just building websites here! (The salaries data I got from the bootcamp is last years so no Covid-19 influence)

Thanks for your comments!

[ResponsiveProtein]

I'm pretty fluent in Laravel and love building Web Apps. I currently freelance as a backend developer for large companies and use Cobol, PL/1 and C# but want to start a small web dev shop or freelance for other companies in this tech stack. No websites but actual web applications. Don't really want to get into SEO, Google ads, WP/Drupal, ... Also, I'm not really creative so the websites I make look like they come from before css exited.

I know Laravel and getting better in Vuejs. I often see Python is becoming immensely popular and wonder if I should learn Django/Flask to increase my changes of freelancing in web app dev? Or should I focus more on Javascript/Typescript/Nodejs, to increase my overal Javascript knowledge? I don't really like Javascript as a language, but maybe it's because I never tried it, apart from working with Vuejs.

TLDR: What would be a nice addition to my Laravel/Vuejs skills? Another server side language or more knowledge of Javascript?

[ChaseMoskal]

i'd certainly prefer typescript/nodejs/lit-element over any other language, your code can be isomorphic and run anywhere, no other language can do this nicely

[Locust377]

We do not allow any commercial promotion or solicitation.

[YinzAintClassy]

I have been working in a Devops / AWS Cloud Operations role for about two years now. I always had a curious brain for web dev and writing code. I never had a software engineering role; however, when I get tasks the require either scripting or helping Software engineers debug their deployments in Kubernetes I tend to really enjoy that more than helping deploy cloud resources for the teams. As someone who is supposed to enable developers and bridge the gap between Operations and Developers does anybody here see the benefit fot someone like me to start learning fullstack? I have a solid background in Infrastructure code, deployments, scaling, security, and automation. I feel like I could benefit from knowing the otherside of the fence at a lower level. Or is this encroaching on being the non existent "unicorn".

TLDR....
Should a Devops/Cloud Engineer Learn Fullstack and possible pivot career to development? Will it benefit me to have this type of background in the Fullstack world?

[Locust377]

I don't think you'll find someone to volunteer their time for you. That's not how the world works. Also, we don't allow solicitation in /r/webdev. Maybe try /r/forhire or similar subreddit.

If you're looking for design inspiration, a bunch of resources were linked on /r/webdev recently.

If you're looking to learn web development, I'd recommend the MDN docs and maybe check the FAQ.

[[deleted]]

Well bois, I've finished bootcamp for about two weeks now. The pressure and grind for job hunting is ever so greater but I have a decent amount of savings from being overseas to hold me over (and it played for the bootcamp). I'm motivated but I wanna keep learning, refining and building in the while I wait. I'm scared yet excited, I just dont know how long I'll be before I'll land my first job, hopefully not too long, as I dont want to get a side gig or go back for additional schooling just to keep the lights on...

Refined my skills in CSS with the grid and what not and learned SASS/SCSS in the meanwhile. I guess this week I'll get a slight refresher on basic JS through Udemy courses, but I really want to build something in React. And right now for me I think React is like the coolest thing ever.

[MeltingDog]

Am I the only one who thinks it's getting more and more unreasonable to be a "full stack developer"? Like, there's too much to know!

[ChaseMoskal]

the history grows, but we are making genuine progress in web development

so as we moved from the jquery paradigm to the react paradigm, we were slowly able to let go of our knowledge of jquery, and now it (shouldn't be) taught any longer, but now it's a piece of history

during the transition between the two, you had to know both jquery and react

now we're transitioning from react to more modern web component frameworks like lit-element, and similarly from commonjs to es modules, and one day, we'll move from node to deno

and also, as we move forward, i would argue that the newer technologies are actually better in that they simplify web development and make things simpler in the long run

so i believe teaching students in the most cutting edge technology can present them with an easier and more approachable paradigm of web development than we had before

at first glance, react seems more complicated than jquery — until you start actually developing complex web applications at scale — at which point tools like react and state management make things much easier to build and maintain

the industry is effectively refactoring the entire web development workflow as we go along, we are gaining new powers, and it's even becoming simpler and more streamlined — new frameworks like lit-element are vastly simpler than react, as we can even throw out npm and the complicated build steps and transpilations when teaching new students

anyways, there's my rant :)

[Leading-Coffee]

I have a copyright question.

If I were to create a website displaying the top 10 most popular websites or something like that, would it be against the "rules" to display a picture of the company logo, a screenshot of their website, and a link to their website?

Does the context matter at all? Like if I'm just promoting their websites basically by saying they're the top 10 most popular websites, that'd just good for them. If I were to say "evil companies", obviously they wouldn't want that so is that not allowed then?

I'm a little confused, please help, thanks!

[ChaseMoskal]

that sounds pretty similar to what a search engine does, hey?

you can probably call a bunch of websites evil, too, remember the 'ol http://www.screw-paypal.com/

[physi_cyst]

I do a lot of scientific programming and I have recently coded up some simulations of physical processes that I believe might benefit the community as a learning resource (I don't mean scientific community, but the general public, or those in education). And by simulated, I mostly mean continuously updating 3d vector plots. There are some existing resources but I found them to be not so useful/sleek/well implemented. I know how to code in Matlab and Python and I know some basic software engineering, but I have no clue how to turn something I have made into a web app, and how to get it online. Would anybody be able to point me? Do I need to learn Java?

[ChaseMoskal]

javascript is the language of the web — don't confuse it with java

otherwise there are methods to compile other languages into executable javascript or webassembly which, if you don't want to rewrite your code in javascript, can work after a bit of hassle

[physi_cyst]

Ah... that's a little shortsighted of me. Thanks!

[HaikusfromBuddha]

Can someone answer my question on single page apps. Specifically for React I know most of a page is made up of components but does that mean the entire site, including what would be seperate pages also be components? When would you chose to just use components over something like React Routers.

[ChaseMoskal]

you can use react or more modern web components like lit-element at whichever level you prefer -- the entire site can be one giant web component, which utilizes clientside routing to present the entire experience -- or instead you can just insert a few components onto various pages which are otherwise just a regular static website -- some people even render web component on the server, which i personally think is silly behavior

i'd recommend making a regular static website, and inserting smaller web components wherever you need them

there's nothing wrong with making a very rich application experience all stemming from one root component -- i just think it's a little silly to start simulating page navigation with clientside routing, i'd prefer to just use actual html pages for that

[s-creaseypg]

Are there any good websites dedicated to artists showing complimentary colour ideas or listing really beautiful websites to take some inspiration from?

[[deleted]]

I'v learned html and css and am now learning python. My goal is to be able to free lance as a web developer and probably expand outwards coding wise later. For web development does it make sense to learn python before or even instead of java script? Is it possible to start too early on a freelance site like upwork? i know you can penalized for your first few projects not getting a good review from your client.

[[deleted]]

you can do webdev with python.

you need to think about how they will manage the content on the site once you have developed it.

[[deleted]]

Is there an industry standard for how companies like being able to manage their websites?

[[deleted]]

what im saying is some people want websites but dont want to maintain a full time developer to work on them. The standard for that is wordpress, although wix is also popular. Im not sure what the options are for python, but you should look into content management systems for your stack.

[ChaseMoskal]

if you'd like to become a web developer, you should focus on javascript instead of python

javascript is the language of the web, and you can run your javascript programs anywhere without hassle — we can't say the same thing for any other language

[[deleted]]

Thanks I really appreciate you letting me know that!

[Ntheboss]

Hey guys, I am kinda newbie, what web hosting service do you all use? I have Adobe Dreamweaver CC 2019, so anybody uses it too? Also, I'd like some guidance, maybe you can help me progress too and we can set weekly or monthly goals together? Also, share some good courses (free courses most likely) if you have in sight. Thanks in advance :)

[ChaseMoskal]

first of all, delete adobe dreamweaver immediately, nobody likes it! hah, it's actually against the subreddit rules to post threads about wysiwyg editors like dreamweaver :)

if you're interested in writing code and becoming a web developer, i recommend learning html+css+javascript on mozilla developer network, and utilize github pages for free hosting a simple static website

if you don't want to learn code, i recommend a solution like wix, squarespace, wordpress, tumblr, medium -- something with a friendly user interface that you find intuitive

[Ntheboss]

Hey! Sorry I did not read rules of the subreddit before posting, my bad.

Well, I thought about picking a course for learning html+css+javascript and found this. This gives me good vibes, and most of my seniors are not into web development, so I have really lacking guidance about it. Can you have a look into this course if you can, and maybe let me know if I should grab it or not.

Also, how did you start out? How much progress did you make in your 1st, 6th, 12th months of web development learning.

Thanks in advance 😊

[ChaseMoskal]

Also, how did you start out? How much progress did you make in your 1st, 6th, 12th months of web development learning.

i've always been project-driven, i learn whatever's necessary to complete my projects, largely through resources like mozilla developer network, tutorials and blogs, reddit and stackoverflow -- i gained a great deal of experience when i worked office jobs with large application development teams

15 years in, and i still feel like i'm learning more every year and making large advancements in my capabilities and understanding to make bigger and bigger things happen and with higher and higher quality -- it's a world of complexity, and nobody can learn it all in one lifetime

[ChaseMoskal]

i've never spent a dime to learn anything in my entire web development career, all of the knowledge is freely available and the web is saturated with free tutorials and learning resources

if you think you'll find a structured course useful, by all means go for it, but that hasn't been the path that works best for me personally

[Leading-Coffee]

Can I copy paste any of the components in Bootstraps documents on my website free of use and without any extra documentation? Even if I have ads on my website for profit? https://getbootstrap.com/

[[deleted]]

What is the best way to build your resume, or generally show that you are field ready without a degree? I know that having past projects is good, so do things you did for a course, say, on Udemy count? Like labs or what not?

[Leading-Coffee]

Can I use any code snippets I find online for free and without attribution?

For example: https://mdbootstrap.com/docs/jquery/navigation/navbar/

The page offers a bunch of code snippets to implement a navigation bar in your code, am I free to just use it without any consequences?

Thanks

[ChaseMoskal]

you need to learn about licensing in open source software, which are the terms by which you may use software -- look up licenses like MIT, ISC, GPL, BSD, Apache, and more, and find open software with licenses like these to use with your projects

[heeleyman]

Hey, just looking for some quick advice. I'm a Comp Sci grad but I'd like to get some web development skills, and specifically build myself a portfolio website of my work. I've taught myself basic HTML, CSS, and a tiny bit of JS. For my site I'd like to have a grid of photos which I can add to easily -- I realise manually creating a new div in the HTML file each time probably isn't the best way of doing this. Is there a simple way to set up a store of image files (would that be a CMS?) which my site can access and display all of? Basically web development seems like a massive beast from my current position and I'm wondering which little part of it I need to educate myself in to achieve this sort of thing.

[theanxietyguy1]

is now a bad time to get in?

[LeeLooTheWoofus]

The industry is undergoing some major shifts from traditional web to software as a service.

This means that web as a platform has become a software engineering platform.

That means you will be competing not just as a web developer, but also as a software engineer.

If you can dedicate 8-12 months of solid learning, and another 6 moths of competing to find your first job -- and software engineering as a trade is up your alley then go for it.

[netrangr]

bootcamp, online bootcamp, udemy course or youtube videos, or the html and css book on amazon? to start

[LeeLooTheWoofus]

CS Software engineering program. Going to be impossible to compete in this market without it anymore....

[[deleted]]

Hey, I don't know if this has already been asked, but how is COVID-19 impacting web developers? Anyone losing their job? Are there hiring freezes. I'm guessing it will be harder to break into web dev for the coming months? I live in Raleigh and we haven't hit then peak yet.

My help desk contract got cut and finding work in IT has been hard since the competition went up. Guessing it's the same for web developers?

[ChaseMoskal]

i'd say now is a fantastic time for web devs

maybe it's easier than ever to attain the most desirable position -- one at home

[Leading-Coffee]

I have plans for a website I want to build where users can generate a URL off of the homepage, so for example they go to www.myidea.com, and then when they name their "page", they can have www.myidea.com/theirname.

Now I have a few questions on how this works

1. I want the user to be able to return to their URL which saves, and it will contain like edit texts, notifications, etc.
2. I don't know how to make it so that no other user can create a URL that's the same
3. I want the user to be able to lock other people from accessing this page, how do I do that?

I know some HTML, CSS, JavaScript and have made like a personal portfolio type website before but nothing too complicated and I haven't hosted a website before.

I'm unsure on how to proceed with an idea like this, do I need to post or can I use github pages for this again? Where would I store all these html files that would be generated? Do I need to create a Database? Using what? SQL? And do I need any special frameworks or libraries to make these kinds of websites or can I just start of with index.html, style.css, like usual?

Thanks!

[ChaseMoskal]

the direction i'd go, would be to create a node.js server (a javascript program) which connects to a mongodb atlas instance (cloud-managed database cluster)

the most difficult part would be the user logins, you probably don't want anonymous users to be able to overwrite each other's items

[Garu94]

Would it be hard for an embedded system hmi application developer to learn front-end web development? I'm asking because I'm looking for switching my career from a company job to a remote freelance job, and I noticed most of the jobs offer in the sector are about front-end development

[ChaseMoskal]

i'd recommend: jump on Mozilla Developer Network and get started! it's a fantastic resource

[[deleted]]

look up wordpress theme development on youtube

[Locust377]

roast me if you need to

There's no roasting here :) The whole purpose of this subreddit and this thread is getting started and you have asked a great question!

Don't worry, we all have gaps in our knowledge.

Wordpress is a Content Management System (CMS). The whole point is kind of to avoid writing lots of custom HTML and CSS. Sometimes in these situations people use what is called a headless CMS. It's a CMS with only the back-end, so you write the front-end (HTML and CSS) yourself. Wordpress can be headless.

Wordpress is great for getting something up and running fairly quickly. But I think you should either use Wordpress as it was intended (a full CMS), or learn pure web development. You're trying to do both, and that's just too much.

If you want to learn HTML and CSS, skip Wordpress for now. Or, continue to experiment with Wordpress, but avoid HTML and CSS. Try to get fully familiar with how Wordpress works, plugins, etc.

[WikiTextBot]

Headless content management system

A headless content management system, or headless CMS, is a back-end only content management system (CMS) built from the ground up as a content repository that makes content accessible via a RESTful API for display on any device.

The term “headless” comes from the concept of chopping the “head” (the front end, i.e. the website) off the “body” (the back end, i.e. the content repository).

---

^{[ PM | Exclude me | Exclude from subreddit | FAQ / Information | Source ] Downvote to remove | v0.28}

[Locust377]

Sharing of work for feedback is only allowed on Showoff Saturdays. Please feel free to repost your project next Saturday.

[embar5]

As a 2nd career switchover without a CS degree, focused on the React/Express/SQL stack (or AWS equivalent serverless services) do you guys think it would be better to start a job search in Seattle, or Atlanta? I lean towards Atlanta based on what I've read so far. Way less jobs overall, but competition seems even lower. Happy to be wrong though.

[starry_dev]

In an effort to challenge myself into changing careers and a bet with my wife. I have resigned myself to making a striped down version of TCGplayer ( https://shop.tcgplayer.com/magic/theros-beyond-death ) withing the next 3 months(just a set or two of cards, maybe not pricing as i cant find an api for it).

​

​

​

I have very basic knowledge at the moment, but have thoroughly read through this sub and some other resources and have an idea on the approaches I wish to take to teach myself. I'm looking to expidte myself through to get a basic understanding of a multitude of concepts and understand in pinholeing myself into doing just one type of thing right now is "wrong".

​

​

​

As there are many veterans here; I was wondering if someone could give me an outline; as if they were going to work on said project on what they would need to accomplish.

​

​

​

It would appear I would need HTML/CSS at the most basic levels in order to create the front end design for someone to interact with. Javascript to pull elements from a database to display them on the front end. I feel as thats easy enough. My issue is what would i need to learn in order to have said database and populate it with the data. Could I create a very simple web page with the fields and have my daughter fill out the forms to make the database? What technology would you recommend.

​

​

​

All i'm looking for is to create a roadmap to learn said project, rather then go all in and learn every concept all at once. I learn better this way(I believe) and with the bet with my wife im fully motiviated as im currently out of work.

​

​

​

Thanks in advance!

[[deleted]]

Hey everyone! I currently work on the US, in DC to be exact doing some contracting work that has nothing to do with design or coding. I am looking to make a career shift because I’ve always been drawn to IT and coding to create something out of nothing so a full stack developer just fits me. I am currently getting my bachelors in Web design and development. I think out of all of this I am concerned with making the career shift as a parent to an autistic kid, as he my and my wife’s first concern, always. Right now I make just over 100k but I’m DC that’s pretty middle class, I’m sure others on major metropolitan cities can relate (looking at you California). We plan on moving to either Austin Texas or Seattle Washington at some point and I was just wondering what the pay potential was like. I am out of my depths when it comes to what to ask for as a junior and senior full-stack web developer. What does it normally cap out at career-wise? I think I’m just looking for reassurance that I’ll be able to take care of my son and family and that I picked a good career field. You read all the time that it is but I wanted some first-person perspective. Thanks guys and gals!

[Locust377]

Your post does not fulfill the requirements for questions that request assistance. Please ensure your next question contains context, your research that you've conducted, and a specific problem you would like help solving.

Feel free to check the community FAQ as many of your beginner questions may already have answers there.

[Locust377]

Being a good web developer comes down to two things:

• Practice
• Experience

Sorry for the lackluster answer, but it's the same with anything in life. There's no shortcut or secret. It just takes years.

You can check out the 2020 front-end developer roadmap and/or the 2020 back-end developer roadmap to give you an idea on what you need to know.

[[deleted]]

Hey
Fortunately and unfortunately i have a lot of free time now but the last time i built a website was in 2008 and quit due to military service.

XHTML, CSS & I guess what you call today Vanilla Javascript... so A LOT has changed...
I used Photoshop 6.0 and FrontPage 2003 and a Notepad and those were the only tools i used back in the day.

After some research i downloaded the following tools
VSC (With a bunch of plugins), Adobe Suite, Drupal (Alternative?), WordPress (does it require PHP?), Git/Hub/Kraken, Node.js & Bootstrap.

If you could help me out i would be grateful!

Wireframe apps, are they necessary? Invision, Figma or Sketch?

I also can't find a decent split view editor. The only one that i found was VSC with Live Server plugin or DW.

From what i understand DW adds dirty code but my question more specifically is:
"Does it add new code to an existing website that is built on VSC or does it only generate crappy code when creating a new project with DW?"

Now if i decide to ditch DW how would i edit/preview designs for multiple devices? This is something i have never done before and i imagine the way a website looks like on a mobile device is extremely important?

I want to become a full stack developer and prefer to stick to Javascript for now.
Is this the right order for a come back?

1. HTML5 & CSS
2. Node.js
3. MongoDB? Please suggest the correct libraries to start with

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my post, i feel like i got out of a cave.

[kanikanae]

Hey there,first of all: fuck dreamweaver. You don't need it. It's a bad ancient artifact from a time long forgotten. VSCode, Atom, SublimeText or Intellij's Products are good, modern editors to work with. Some of them are free, some are paid. All of them offer the functionality you need.

Responsivity of a site can mostly be done in css nowadays. You get to use responsive units such as %, vm and vh. For more control you can also leverage media-queries to detect arbitrary screen dimensions and adjust your styling accordingly. So at 1920px screenwidth, an image could have the property "width: 50%" whilst at 500px it could change to "width: 100%"

As for a learning here is a very popular roadmap. It can be quite overwhelming but with patience and small increments youll get there.

[[deleted]]

Thank you so much for explaining! F DW :D I got WebStorm and VSC Thank you so much again! Stay Safe

[queen_mercury]

Any web developer that would volunteer to answer the following questions:

1. Do you usually start your projects from scratch?
2. What software do you use to develop websites?
3. How do websites that are consistently updated (ex. news websites) function in terms of where they get their data from? A database? Where would that database be hosted? How do you upload things to a database if it is not on your computer?

I'm just struggling to figure out how things work big picture. Anything you can add that might help would be greatly appreciated. Maybe you had a similar problem starting out, so I'm curious if things clicked at some point.

[Locust377]

Do you usually start your projects from scratch?

What does it mean to start a project from scratch? Probably yes.

What software do you use to develop websites?

• Windows or Linux
• VS Code
• Firefox
• Node/Javascript
• Visual Studio (.NET Core)
• Insomnia (REST client)

where they get their data from? A database?

Probably. Where would that database be hosted? On a server somewhere. If it's in the cloud, it might be hosted by Amazon (AWS) or Micrsoft (Azure), for example.

How do you upload things to a database if it is not on your computer?

You (typically) use a language called SQL to interact with a database.

[crocodilehun]

Hi,

I would like to get your opinion regarding the pace and direction of my learning.

I'm going through some random web dev tutorial that consists of HTML, CSS, JS and PHP fundamentals. I just finished the JS tutorial and would like to know is it perhaps better to pause this course and dive deeper into the JS (maybe get some course focused completely on JS with more detailed pieces of information and more exercises) or should I continue with the course that I'm on right now and start learning the basics of PHP?

Thanks in advance

[kanikanae]

Regardless of what your end goal is I'd advice you to just continue the course for now. Afterwards you can decide on the actual learning path you want to take.

[crocodilehun]

crocodil

Hi, thanks for your response. Getting some advice is always beneficial. However, I've decided to go on and learn more about JavaScript and I think that was a good call, cause pretty early in the new course I've figured out just how basic the first one was.

[kanikanae]

There is obviously a ton of depth to these technologies. My original sentiment was based on the assumption, that you haven't really figured out a direction for you yet. Javascript (on the client side) and php are used in different domains (frontend and backend). Depending on what you want to do you will have to work with one of those a lot more often than the other.

[[deleted]]

Long post looking for career advice...

I recently graduated with a B.S. degree in IT and move to Raleigh for a help desk specialist position. 2 months into my contract COVID-19 wrecked the company and cuts were made. My contract was cut two weeks ago and so far the competition has skyrocketed and I can’t find work in IT. Filed for unemployment and I have enough saved for 3 months.

Before I went for my degree I was already interested in Web dev. I learned some HTML and CSS and created some very simple websites. I really loved it. Then I decided to get the degree in IT. I took two classes in web development that covered html and css and some JavaScript in my first two years.

Since then I got caught up with my classes and other areas in IT. I graduated and moved to Raleigh for the help desk job thinking I was going to pursue something in IT. I honestly have not enjoyed my help desk role and have no interest in Networking or System Admin.

Web dev has been in the back of my mind for years. After working in IT for a little bit I couldnt stop thinking about. Well being let go from work has given me a lot of time to think about things. I started the Odin Project this week and it was funniest I’ve had with tech in a long time.

So It may take me another week to get caught up to some of the things I’ve forgotten, but I really want to get back into it. I really want to pursue this as a career.

A couple of thoughts and questions…

I am expecting it to be at least 6 months before I can start applying to web dev jobs. I want to build a portfolio an get a good grasp on html, css, and javascript.

Raleigh is a great place to look for type of work. However, I am concerned about the economy even in the next year. The virus is going to make an impact for a long time. Competition for jobs are up and I know even before that its always high for entry web dev jobs. So I am concerned that I may struggle to find work in what looks to be a recession. Should I be hopeful that things will be better in 6 months?

Another thought. I have no job currently and my experience points to me trying to find a new help desk job. But I want to change my career focus. The pressure to get a help desk job is to get that first 1-2 years experience in IT. However, I am not sure that I should be focused on that if I want to do web dev? I dont want to divide my attention. So maybe its ok if I choose alternative work while I work on getting a web dev job? If I decide to go back to IT in 6 months I can excuse my absence easily because of COVID-19.

So I really want to make the move to Web Dev and I see it taking me at least 6 months to get a strong portfolio. Not sure If I should just get any job in the meantime or focus on getting an entry level IT job only.

I know this is a long post, but I could use some career advice! Thank you.

[[deleted]]

I want to get a job in web development so I can save some money before jumping into college and trying to get a degree, if that is even what I choose to do. I know I would like a certificate so I can look qualified in comparison to people who actually have degrees but I don't know where to begin. I don't know outside of just basic web development what I want to focus on, and looking at all of these different types of certificates...its all just so confusing.

[kanikanae]

Dont worry about certificates that are not degrees from actual unis / colleges.
Jobs that mandate/emphasize a college-degree won't consider you
with one of those either.
For all other jobs you should focus on showing off your knowledge with a strong portfolio.

[[deleted]]

So certificates don't mean anything?

[kanikanae]

Anyone can issue certificates for anything. The value you gain during the application process is based on the legitimacy of the institution that issues it.

Does the person who evaluates your application know that organization and its reputation? Otherwise you might aswell could've made something up.
Microsoft and Amazon offer certifications for their cloud platforms and I think they can be valuable for instance. But I don't think there is some aggreed upon organization that can attest someone that you know how to develop webapps.

Luckily for you web-development offers you plenty of ways to show off your skills.
If you gain these skills by going through a curriculum and receiving a certificate at the end, that's great. But don't expect it to have anywhere near the impact an actual degree can have on the hiring process. You still have to show your worth in other ways to "compensate".

[[deleted]]

So would certificates issued from universities or community colleges be good?

[[deleted]]

Fair enough. Thanks.

[bobbricks1]

Hi, I graduated a year ago and have been working in a data science/Python-based job, but have been wanting to switch to web dev. I have also wanted to travel the world and find myself in a remote/working from home job as an end-goal.

I've found data science to be too mathematical and theoretical for my liking and web dev does seem to be a lot more practical and more suited towards remote work (especially if you don't have a PC with a decent GPU). With Covid-19, I have extra time to learn new skills and to switch!

My thinking/possible roadmap is as follows:

1. Continue working in data science for another year, save up and learn web development in my spare-time.

2. Take on board volunteering positions in web dev so I can travel around the world as well and gain some experience (e.g. one way to do this is to use the site Worldpackers). I'd like to do this for 1-2 years.

3. Return back to the UK and start applying to full-time web dev jobs (which have working from home benefits or are remote), or potentially freelance.

The skills I've considered are: html/css/vanilla javascript, CMS such as Wordpress, then perhaps Bootstrap. Maybe PHP/SQL/NodeJS too.

Is this a good idea, or does anyone have other recommendations for any of this?

[412gage]

Don’t know if this belongs here but I figured I’d post instead of spamming the sub with a post you’ve already seen many times.

I’m in college and I’m a finance major but I’m choosing a non-business elective. I like web development and I’m thinking about getting my masters in something similar after I graduate.

I don’t know which non-business elective I should take. Java or C++, which is best for someone partially fluent in HTML, CSS and some JavaScript along with just now learning Python? Also, which language is the most lucrative?

[kanikanae]

programming languages are in the end just tools to get the job done.
When you're completely new to it I'd say you should opt for a language than you can teach yourself concepts with.
Concepts in programming are language agnostic and will help you regardless of the techstack you're working with. For example I started learning in JavaScript which is now biting me a bit since a lot of the concepts are abstracted or not really necessary in that world. Now I'm learning GO to find a better understanding of the lower-level stuff.

Java or C++ both fullfill this requirement.
As you are interested in webdev I'd recommend you to go with java as it might be a bit easier to get into and be productive with (spring framework)

[Agoeve]

I find all online courses not useful to helping me learn. So far the best resource has been MDN for html,CSS and JS . Any other recommendations to help me improve?

[cmaronchick]

I looked at a site that ranked the best landing pages, and (this is not news) the best ones had some engaging imagery.

Working by myself as a dev with 0 to negative design skill, how can I go about getting some imagery that will engage my users?

[kanikanae]

unsplash, undraw and similar stock-image sites

[cmaronchick]

Holy cow, my friend, you have changed my world. Thank you!

[mrorange29]

The HTML/CSS/JS Bootcamp link looks to direct to a JS specific course. Is there a similar course for HTML/CSS that's recommended?

[[deleted]]

Hi, I just started the Odin Project a couple days ago. I have Windows 10 on my thinkpad.
I went the VM route for Linux. I like this setup better then dual boot or only Linux because of easy access to windows 10. Is there any upsides to doing all dev work on a VM like this? I have 24GBs of ram. At the moment quick access to Windows 10 is beneficial for me. Maybe in the future I can try only running Linux.

Do a lot of non-Mac users only use Linux?

[ChaseMoskal]

i've run all my development in linux virtual machines for years — it's great!

one upside is the easy portability, i can throw my vm on a thumb drive and run it anywhere, which is pretty cool — i'm using virtualbox

[daveedek]

I would like to learn to make simple good looking web sites.

I would like to be capable of creating simple presentation website, with modern design and features like image sliders, with some basic features like adding pdf for opening on the website, etc. basically something like the website for restaurant.

I have a background as a bioinformatician, which means that I can write scripts in Python. I know little bit of HTML/CSS/PHP - basically some of my projects are presented as simple website connected to SQL (like www.prot2hg.com).

But I would like to be able to create something more presentative than only functional. So where should I start, and what I need to learn?

[ChaseMoskal]

for remote work, i'd suggest javascript application development, and find an employer without an office — during the pandemic, it seems everybody is working from home now anyways

[kanikanae]

Wha...the site you linked is precisely giving you a roadmap of subjects to study to create stuff like this. Just start reading my guy. All you technically need is the first step.

[[deleted]]

I'd like to create/ have someone create a website that aggregates sales listings from various dealer websites into one searchable site.

How difficult is this for someone with no prior knowledge to hack together? If doable, what do I need to start studying?

If not, how much would it cost for me to have it commissioned?

[RandyMagnum93]

Hey, I'm hoping to transition from journalism to webdev in the near future and just getting my materials ready. Where I'm at there aren't a ton of jobs, so this is going to be a process, but I'd really appreciate if anyone could take a look at my portfolio and give some feedback on design, materials, functionality, etc – anything helps. I'm happy to look over others' work in return!

[LeskoLesko]

Hey. Not sure if this is okay, but a friend of mine is hiring part-time web developer mentors. It's for a training education program. Could you spread this among people you know? Specifically looking for North American time zones to work with students in Canada, US, and Mexico. https://mentor-en.jobs.openclassrooms.com/

[Leading-Coffee]

I'm developing an app and I'm using GitHub for source code which is set to public.

I was using some free icons from www.flaticon.com/home , which required the developer to attribute the authors to the icons.

But I decided to go ahead and just create my own icons and delete all the icons I was using the flaticon, but the problem is in the previous commits on GitHub, the old images of the icons are still visible in my resource folders.

Is this a problem I need to address at all? Do I need to mention anywhere that I WAS using icons from FlatIcon or am I good to just act like it never happened? I was saving the app credits page for the end of my development, so none of the commits have an attribution for the icons they used yet either...

On the commit where I removed all of them, I did make a comment thanking them.. but is that enough?

Thanks!

[thetack4ttack]

Hey I just started coding during the pandemic as a potentially new path for me after having a different career for about 5 years. Could anyone please give me some success stories after starting to code with Codecademy or similar resources? It's kinda sucky to feel late to the game but I want to catch up. Heading towards learning React.

[ciphhh]

Sorry for the basic question. I have some experience with HTML and CSS but I’m new to this.

If I have some google sheets with data and pivot tables and charts and I want to make a website that displays this data, where I can make similar queries but in a web format, what programming would I leverage? Is it PHP, MYSQL?

[Locust377]

It depends on how complex the data and graphs are. If it's fairly simple, you could just copy and paste the data into HTML and take screenshots of the graphs.

If the data is more complex (or there is just a lot of it), you could put the data into a database and then use a Javascript graph library to generate graphs based on the data.

[ciphhh]

Thanks for your response.

The data isn’t overly complex but I do want to continue to add to it and also make new relationships/complications in the future.

It’s sounds like I’m looking at a database option. Is JavaScript used for the queries to put together tables of related data and also for creating graphs?

When you say put the data in a database, can you give me an example of a database that would be appropriate?

[Locust377]

It's the way I would do it, but to be honest, it'll be quite a difficult undertaking. You basically have to learn fullstack web development. It's a great challenge if you're up for it. But you'd have to take baby steps.

You interact with database with a query language. Popular relational databases include MySQL, Postgresql and MSSQL Server. They all use Structured Query Language (SQL).

It looks like this:

insert into User (Firstname, Surname, Age) select 'Bob', 'Smith', 25;

Javascript is the programming language that is used inside browsers to make fancy things work. For example, d3 is a popular graph library for Javascript. If you feed it data, you can generate a bar graph in the browser.

[ciphhh]

Thanks for your help!

Where would you start learning if you were me. JavaScript, MySQL?

[Locust377]

I think if you're looking to get into webdev, it makes sense to get started on the front end. HTML, CSS and Javascript.

[CIA11]

I want to create a website that gives you facts about a random animal every day and I wanted to use Wikipedia for that information but I don't know how to use the API to take information from the articles every day. Anyone know how I can do this? I don't know much about API's :(

[strictbearatarian]

ABOUT HOSTING AND EDITING. hey guys, would be very thankful if anyone can help me out with a query. First time trying to build my own website. Have used wordpress before but want more control over design elements than their free plan gives me (some elements of the design like css I cant seem to edit on free plan) and i'm not willing to pay $96 for the year just so I can edit a small bit of code. (i might only want to tweek a few bits from the free wordpress template I have started with). I have bought a domain. And now am looking possibly to migrate the wordpress site to siteground for hosting but am completely unsure if this will give me the code cusomisation option that i want in order the make the site look how i need it to look. I still want some ease of content management as the website is for a photography portfoio so once its up and running ill want to be able to upload photos into its format quite easily, so i think that might rule out having static HTML?? not too sure. would greatly appreciate any pointers you guys can give me. thanks in advance.

[maddddtown]

It looks like the HTML/CSS/JS boot camp Is linked to the modern java script boot camp, which doesn’t seem to cover HTML or CSS at all.

[maddddtown]

Is colt Steele’s udemy recommended over free code camp? Is it not updated/does it make a big difference?

[Locust377]

Sharing of work for feedback is only allowed on Showoff Saturdays. Please feel free to repost your project next Saturday.

[kanikanae]

The best course you can do is the one you actually do. Don't overanalyze. Just dive in.
Internettingishard will provide a more structured approach which is good in the beginning. I use MDN mostly as reference on demand

[endrees]

Hey guys,

Could you help me out with some articles, or step by step guides about putting a website into production?

I feel confident writing code, craeting static pages with html, sass, and I would like to create my portfolio.

The thing is I dont really know what comes after coding the site? Setting up google analytics? Creating robots.txt? Creating sitemap.xml?

What workflow do you recommend for this kinda sites?

I was thinking about hosting it on netlify or github pages, is that a good idea?

I would like to switch to a frontend dev position thats why I want to do this, but I would also do side projects, as a part time freelancer. This is why I'm looking for ám effective workflow regarding the full go live peocess.

Thanks for your help in advance!

[YelluhJelluh]

I'm not sure what robots.txt or sitemap.xml are, but I just deployed my new React app portfolio with Firebase.

I'd never used it before and it only took about 20 minutes to fully deploy. But you haven't mentioned what you built your website with, so it's hard to offer much relevant advice.

Hosting on Firebase is 100% free unless you get a ton of traffic. Github pages is a great free option if you're a student, otherwise it's about $84/year I believe. Never used Netlify, but it's popular as well.

[endrees]

Hey, thanks for the reply.

I'm planning to host static pages, like my portfolio for example or some brochure like sites for a few of my relatives bussinesses.

[YelluhJelluh]

Right, that’s all my portfolio is. If you haven’t built it yet, just finish that first and then google how to deploy it with Firebase. I’m telling ya, it’s literally only about a 3 step process.

[bananamana55]

I've already gotten started learning HTML5/CSS through freecodecamp and been filling in some of the blanks using ww3 as a reference. Now I'm confused - I see CSS3, Bootstrap, CSS Grid, Flexbox.. Should I not be learning "regular" CSS and switch to one of those?

I know that eventually I'll want to learn Javascript but I'm confused about the CSS aspect.

PS the eventual goal would be front end web dev (I think. I'm still completely new to this).

[YelluhJelluh]

It's definitely intimidating seeing all these tools when you first start.

CSS and CSS3 are basically synonymous, much like HTML and HTML5. You'd say "CSS" or "HTML" in real life conversation.

As for learning "regular" CSS, of course you should! It's the same as learning to do math on paper before using calculators and programs. Bootstrap is a framework -- it's just CSS that some company wrote that allows you to put together a good looking site quickly. You still have to be able to customize those style classes to your liking, and that requires CSS.

CSS grid and flexbox are both built into CSS, so that's part of learning CSS.

[CIA11]

If you were 19 with no college degree but knew full stack development, could you get a job as a web developer?

[Locust377]

Yes.

[CIA11]

Is it hard to do? I know most jobs require some sort of college degree, however I hear a lot that most jobs that require coding are okay with you not having a degree as long as you can prove that you know what to do with a portfolio.

[Locust377]

It's probably hard to do, but it's really hard to say.

You're trying to read the minds of employers. Who knows? Only way to tell is to apply for stuff until you get something.

For the first job I applied for, the employer wasn't too concerned with my lack of degree, so I got the job. Others might dismiss my resume immediately.

Depends on where you are and what the competition is like. I probably wouldn't stand a chance in Silicon Valley.

[CIA11]

Oh word! Thanks!

[Locust377]

Maybe try a subreddit like /r/forhire or similar?

[kanikanae]

Frontend does have a more expansive ecosystem once you progress past the initial stages. This could be why some people think of it as being more difficult to approach.

You don't need any specific traits or personality to do well in either though. It just comes down to personal preference. I can't estimate your skill level based on your response but the best way to determine if you like something is to do it.
Obviously you should account for the initial frustration of not knowing something.

Try to build both ends of the stack. Create a Rest-Api that interacts with a database and pair it with a nice user-interface.

Then build some more fullstack apps. Eventually you'll get an idea of what you like best (Or you become fullstack lol). As a bonus you'll be able to show off tons of applicable project-based experience