This blog is all about mistakes I made while learning Full Stack Web Development as a beginner. I started my Web Development journey in November 2020. I made a lot of mistakes in Web Development and realized it while learning throughout the year. I have been doing Web Development for the past 1 year and am still learning it. In this blog, I will be talking about some of the major mistakes I made while learning Web Development and also provide solutions for them so that you won't make these mistakes. My major mistakes include:
Not taking breaks
I was very enthusiastic when learning Web Development in the beginning but I was not taking breaks after completing one part or portion of the course which I was following which broke my enthusiasm. Taking breaks is very important whether you are learning or building projects. If you are tired while learning then take a break and do it later when you feel free and energetic. If you got stuck in an error while building any project and you are trying to solve that issue for the last 2 to 4 hours then I would highly recommend leaving that problem and try to solve it the next day with a fresh mind. Most of the time I found that the very next day the issue or problem is solved. This technique has worked with me 95% of the time. Working in a fresh mind and mood is very important. Do take breaks in an interval of time.
Not Building Projects
Building projects are very important while learning any tech stack. Building projects will make your concepts clear and memorable. I will highly suggest you to start building projects while and after learning any concepts. For example, if you are learning HTML and CSS then you can create many static websites, and also if you have completed JavaScript you can create a ton of new projects. If you are following any course then most probably you will also get projects to build but I will recommend you to also build projects separate from the courses. This will help you to learn and grab more things faster related to the tech stack you are learning. YouTube and blogs are some great resources where you can get awesome project ideas.
Not using Developer Tools
This was one the biggest mistake I committed with myself while learning Web Development. We can do a lot of things with Developer Tools. One of its features is that we can inspect our web app and find errors on it. When I started building projects I faced two types of errors which are simple errors and internal errors. Simple errors include typing errors, missed semicolons, etc. Whereas internal errors are those which happens when you missed some important or major line of code or you typed it completely wrong. A simple error does not take much time to debug but an internal error takes a lot of time in debugging if we can't find where the problem is. Missing an import in React is an example of an internal error. I will also add a screenshot of an internal error that I faced while I was building a project.
Developer tools save a lot of time in debugging. You can open Developer Tools in your browser by pressing Ctrl+Shift+I in windows and ⌘ + ⌥ + I in Mac and start exploring the tools. There are various videos on YouTube where you can learn about Developer Tools and how to use them.
Not taking help from internet and developer communities
One of the mistakes I made in the beginning while learning Web Development is that I don't take help from the internet. If you are stuck in an error then do take help from Google and Stack Overflow. Googling is a very important skill. You can also take help from documentation for additional reference. Also, I will recommend you to take help from Developer communities. You can get one on one guidance and doubt clearing in developer communities. Also in Developer communities, you get an opportunity to grow your network and collaborate with more like-minded folks for a project or hackathons.
These are some of the major mistakes I made while learning Web Development as an absolute beginner. I hope that this will save you a lot of time while learning web development. Mistakes will always happen while developing or building projects and these mistakes will give you the experience to become a better developer so never get scared or tensed when an error or issue occurs instead think that you are going to learn something new. At last, I would like to thank you for taking the time for reading this blog. Please comment and do express your thoughts on this blog. If you have any queries regarding this blog, Web Development, etc. then feel free to contact me on Twitter (@HarshitAditya1). I am highly active on Twitter and I would be happy to solve your queries and have a conversation with you.
Top comments (41)
The biggest mistake I made was learning PHP. :|
My 2 cents on the phenomenon:
---- About me/our team -----
I'm a backend developer (not a coder really, since I take business acceptance criteria -> do my research -> design the feature from logical and technical point of view -> write tests and code it -> create docs -> yada yada) for a few years now.
---- Our environment ----
I come from an environment, where we use:
Our company generates revenue in tens of mil. € / year. We have up to 20k orders/day.
And so far we did not hit any limit of the PHP as a technology.
Of course you can't compare this to Facebook and the load on it's servers, but as Rasmus Lerdorf himself said (paraphrase):
"It's just a tool, what really matters is what you create with it"
What matters is what you aim to achieve.
For our team of 7 devs and 2 testers it is "as high as possible quality" + "business value". And with PHP we've been able to do this for a few years now.
---- The ending point ----
It is perfectly possible to either gain bad an good development and coding practices in any language - be it PHP, JavaScript, ...
If you start / are intermediate in / already have done a lot in web development - you can still gain knowledge and push yourself further with PHP as you can in any other.
With PHP you can do almost the same as with any other server-side or scripting (maybe except stuff like serial communication with another device) language (what a junior dev might need/want). You can do object oriented; test driven; scripting; socket communication; microservice; design patterns... What we people sometimes fail to realize there are different tools for different tasks.
(yes, you can even use strict data types on file level)
Do not worry about PHP.
Pick your strength (language or technology), but surely expand to others as well.
Worry about:
W3C or other standards;
KISS, DRY, SOLID, ... (standards)
Open API;
good practices in code;
unit and integration tests;
stress testing;
debugging;
using an IDE;
documentation;
different git workflows;
making your app migratable to different server/env;
docker or equivalent;
microservices;
cicd;
machine learning;
working in scrum or kanban;
...
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
To this day I never fully learned PHP. I only learned enough to do some basic templating using WordPress.
Why bro? I wanna to start it ASAP.
Dumb mindset 👌👎
Look into the Laravel framework to make use of your PHP knowledge. Very versatile framework to solve many different problems
Same here
No Comments 😂.
But Why, isn't PHP required anymore in industry?
Why you think so?
Out of biggest adapter of php, fb learnt its shit so they went for hack/hhvm.
Out of new big companies only slack uses php and like it as far as I know.
The actual reason we don't like it has mostly to do with dynamic types and shitty language as a whole.
There are many people who would defend it, but they probably don't work as a team, or have built a large project
Another mistake !! People use raw knowledge learnt from scratch to create new websites evn after a yr of learning ! Thinking using bootstrap is not worthy. After a hold of 5-6 months on Web Development the developer should Start using amazing platforms like bootstrap,w3schools ,etc
Agreed! When i started learning, I spent a year building with vanilla Html, CSS, and JS before learning React, Pug, or ScSS.
Yaa before moving to frameworks like React or Angular or Vue, it is important to have command in HTML,CSS and Javascript.
Yaa, Exactly !. Thanks for sharing your mistake 😀.
Grey article! For people that want to build projects, I recommend front-end mentor. As a beginner, I just started it last month and I regret it so much. Sometimes, it's diffiy to think of projects to build, but front-end helps take care of that completely.
Thank you Kareemah. I hope you find this blog beneficial and helpful 😀.
Great tips. I'm lacking in a few.
Thank you !. I hope that this blog will help you to overcome the points which you are lacking at. Happy Learning.
Keep going like this. I'm pretty sure that this blog will be helpful for beginners who're getting started with web development.
Thanks a lot bro !.
Thank you for this, it was straight to the point, insightful and helpful. Most posts I read just go on and on. I then end up getting bored half way through. This post was direct and easy to read and understand.
Nice tips especially the break one, taking breaks really helps me a lot. I was also thinking of joining a webdev community can u suggest some communities to join? will be of great help Thanks!
Thanks a lot Rohan for finding my blog beneficial !. For Communities I dont have know a specific community who focuses only on Web Dev but I know communities which focuses on all type of Development which includes Web Dev,ML, Mobile Development etc.
The name of these communities with their invite link are:
MichiSpotlight: (discord.gg/Ec2YsBRN)
OpinCo Community: (discord.gg/Va5gK3NS)
EddieHub: (discord.gg/AaYzEFk2)
and you can also join Twitter. There are many web devlopers on Twitter from whom you can learn a lot of new things ✨. Twiiter is highly recommeded from my side 💯. I hope this helps 😀.
Amazing Work Buddy✨✨
Keep it up Good work
Thanks Bro 😀!
Amazing article 👏
Thhank You !
Thank you bro, I thought you're talking to myself. When it comes Web developer HTML and Css it an easy but the most difficult are Jquery and JAVASCRIPT.
Thanks a lot for your kind words Abdinajib 😄 .