Web Development in 2021 ─ A Complete Guide

There has been a huge demand for Web Developers in recent years. More than 500,000 new websites are created every day. The demand for Web Developers is ever-increasing but there aren't enough skilled developers to meet the demand. Also, it's one of the easiest fields in programming and with thousands of resources available on the internet, it becomes even easier to learn web development.

To become a Web Developer, you'll have to learn several things in a specific order. In this post, I am gonna tell you the complete steps you need to follow to become a web developer. I'll also recommend some free online tutorials to help you learn web development.

But before, let us understand the difference between the front-end and the back-end. A website has two parts ─ frontend and backend. The front end is the part of the website that we can see and interact with. It contains the UI ( User Interface ) and the code to handle the UI. Whereas, the backend contains the code that runs in the server. It is usually the code that deals with authentication, authorization, database, etc. Some people work with only the front end or backend. While some developers work with both frontend and backend and they are known as Full Stack Developers.

In this article, I am gonna label each technology whether it belongs to the frontend or the backend. So, if you are only going to learn only the front end or the backend part and not the whole thing, you can ignore the other.

But, if you are going with Full Stack Development, I'll recommend you to learn everything in the same order as is mentioned in this article.

FRONTEND

So, let's start off by talking about the most basic thing ─ HTML.

1. HTML

HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. It is used to structure the content of a web page. It describes what UI elements a web page has and the content inside them. HTML is very easy to learn. It only takes a couple of days to learn HTML.

2. CSS

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. We use CSS to design and style a webpage. It's used to change font size, color, background color, etc. CSS helps in designing the whole layout of a website. CSS can be tricky to learn. It might you half a month to get familiar with CSS.

Tutorial For HTML and CSS:

3.JavaScript

JavaScript is a programming language that is used to create and control the content of a website. It is also used to handle the events of a website. For example, what should be done when a button is clicked.

With JavaScript, you can send and receive data from a server. JS isn't a very hard programming language to learn. You can learn it in a couple of weeks.

JavaScript Tutorial:

BACKEND

After learning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, you would be able to create a simple static website. A static website contains web pages with fixed content. But, if you want to create a website with dynamic content where users will be able to upload content or you just wanna have a website with login and signup functionality, you will have to learn a backend technology too.

In backend development, we have various technologies and programming languages to choose from. You can build the backend with JavaScript, Python, PHP, etc. There are many other options, but currently, Python, JS, and PHP are the most popular and relatively easy to work with. So, let's go through with each of them.

1. JavaScript (or NodeJS)

If you are already familiar with JavaScript and you didn't skip the frontend. JS might be the best option for you. You don't have to learn a new language.

NodeJS is the runtime environment for JavaScript. In other words, it's just a tool that helps you run JS on a server.

JavaScript Tutorial:

NodeJS Tutorial:

2. PHP

PHP stands for HyperText PreProcessor. PHP is another programming language that you can use to build your backend.

PHP has one advantage over other languages, i.e., you can create themes and plugins for WordPress with PHP. It is one of the easiest programming languages. It is as easy as JavaScript.

PHP Tutorial: 

3. Python

Python might be the hardest option. Because you'll have to learn a web framework after learning Python. But, Python has many advantages too. If you wanna go into the field of Data Science, Machine Learning and AI, Python would come in handy there.

There are mainly two Python frameworks and you can choose which one you wanna learn. They are Django and Flask.

You can choose anyone, it doesn't really matter.

At this point, you'll be able to build a fully-fledged website.

Python Tutorial:

Django Tutorial:

Flask Tutorial:

Database:

After picking your backend programming language and learning it, you need to also learn a database. A database is where you store the data like the information of the users, posts, articles, etc. There are many databases available today. Some examples are MongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc.

Tutorials:

MongoDB: 

MySQL:

PostgreSQL:

FRONTEND FRAMEWORKS

In front-end development, there's one more thing you should learn after JavaScript. It's a front-end framework. A framework is just a pre-written code that allows you to do certain things without even writing the code for it. With a frontend framework, your website can go to the next web page without even refreshing or reloading the whole site. It gives you many other features too like code reusability, faster development time, etc.

There are three main frontend frameworks ─ React, Vue, and Svelte. You can choose any of these. And, if you want you can learn another frontend framework after learning your first one.

Tutorials:

React:

Vue:

Svelte:

But, there's a big problem with these frontend frameworks. They are not SEO-friendly. It means that the website using these frameworks will have a hard time ranking on Google and other search engines. It happens because the content of the website is generated after it has loaded into the browser.

But, this problem can be easily solved with a server-side rendering framework. These frameworks help you render your website on the server. For React we have NextJS, for Vue we have Nuxt, and for Svelte you can use Sapper.

Tutorials:

NextJS:

Nuxt:

Sapper:

Conclusion:

Don't get overwhelmed by all these things that you gotta learn. It becomes easier once you learn the fundamentals. And, if you be consistent and determined, you'll be a web developer in no time.