Getting started with web development can be overwhelming sometimes especially for those who transition into tech or have never been exposed to it. I am writing this article to simplify your journey by highlighting what you really need to get started with web development. The basics consist of three main things. A web browser, a code editor and programming skills.
A web browser
A web browser is a piece of software that allows us to interact with resources on the web. The resources include websites, web applications, cloud ecosystem etc. In short, a web browser is the place where web applications are accessed. Even though we need web browsers to access our web resources, modern web browsers do a lot more than that with developer tools. The developer tools are very necessary as they help debug errors, inspect code, analyse performance of the application. Some of the most recommended web browsers include Google Chrome, FireFox etc.
A text editor
The next thing you will need is a text editor. It's a software in which we will write the code for our application. Some code editor are already included in the operating system. We have TextEdit for Mac OS and Notepad for Windows PCs. The advantage is that they are very simple to use but the limitations are also important to notice. For example, we do not have text formatting, text or code completion is these editors. It's plain text. And that is why most tutorials will recommend more advanced editor like Visual Studio Code, Atom or Sublime Text. They offer better visual when writing code.
Programming skills
Last but not least, programming skills. Even though some languages are cross platform, it is very important to understand that the Web has its standards and they are HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Yep, you will need to know them in order to build for the Web.
- HTML: will provide the structure of the page;
- CSS: will allow us to style our Web pages;
- JavaScript: will make our pages dynamic;
In my experience, these are the main things you need in order to get started in web development. The first two items (Web browser and text editor) are generally installed the same day. The programming skill on the other side will definitely take longer but; do not worry just watch out for this space for more in-depth articles on each technology mentioned here. I cannot leave without asking you what you think can be added to this list to make learning Web development less stressful.
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