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Front-End Web Development Roadmap for Beginners 2023
The Step-By-Step Guide and Resources to Become a Front-End Developer
Introduction
Have you ever imagined what the internet would look like without websites? Very different; certain information, like this article, might not even exist. Online shopping on Amazon and eBay wouldn't be possible, and social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google would be nonexistent. This emphasizes the important role that web developers play in today's digital world.
So, if you've made up your mind to pursue a career in web development (front-end, to be specific), welcome to the party; you’re part of those shaping and reshaping the digital space. However, knowing how and where to start your journey can be a headache. In this article, I’ll show you what you need to learn and where to find resources and materials to help you.
Before I dive into the nitty-gritty, let me define what a roadmap is.
What is a Roadmap
A roadmap is a step-by-step guide or blueprint that helps in achieving a goal. In this case, your goal is to become a front-end developer.
We can’t just go straight to the roadmap without talking about web development in general; this is to help you get a clear perspective on what you’re getting into.
What is Web Development?
Web development is simply defined as the building of websites using programming languages and tools such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, VsCode, etc. (more on these later). So, as a web developer, your responsibility is to build and maintain websites.
Web development is divided into three parts:
Frontend Development.
Backend Development.
Full Stack Development
Frontend Development
Frontend development involves the building of the part of the website that the visitors or users interact with, such as the texts on the website, the signup form, the submit button, the dropdown menu, the search field, the grocery items listed on the website, and so on.
A person who specializes in front-end development is called a "front-end developer." They are responsible for building a visually appealing and user-friendly website that is smooth, responsive, intuitive, and easy to navigate. A front-end developer ensures that the website works across different browsers (Opera, Microsoft Edge, Chrome, Firefox, etc.) and that the website appears great on computers, smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, and so on.
The front-end developer implements the idea of the UI/UX designer and turns it into a website, just like an animator turns a sketch into a cartoon.
Backend Development
Backend web development involves building the part of the website that is not visible to website visitors or users. It is the control center of a website and involves things such as servers and the security of the website. A person who specializes in backend development is called a "backend developer." The backend of a website store, retrieve, and processes the user’s data.
For example, when a user tries to sign in to a website they’ve previously registered with their email address and password, the backend fetches the user’s data by matching it to what is on the website database. Backend languages include PHP, Ruby, Python, Java, etc.
Full Stack Development
Full-stack web development involves the building and managing of both the front-end and back-end aspects of the website. A person who specializes in full-stack development is called a "full-stack developer." The skills required are a combination of both front-end and back-end.
Front-End Development Roadmap
Having established who a front-end developer is and his role, the next step is to identify the technologies, tools, and applications used by a front-end developer.
HTML
HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. It is the conventional markup language used to create and structure the content of all websites.
Hypertext means a text can contain a link within it; clicking the text will take you to a new web page or URL.
Markup means that HTML uses a standard set of elements and tags to define the elements and tags. These tags are called "semantic elements." For instance, the <p> tag is used to define a paragraph. The <img> tag is used to define an image. Learning these tags and their attributes will help you write a standard code.
When a visitor goes to a website, their browser interprets the HTML code and renders the page's contents based on the HTML structure and formatting.
Important Concepts to Learn in HTML:
Tags
Elements
Attributes
Resources to Learn HTML:
CSS
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. It is used to apply style and change the appearance and layout of the HTML document. It enables web developers to control how a web page will appear by adding colors, fonts and rearranging the positions of HTML elements. With CSS, you can center a text or move it to the right; you can also add animations to the website, thereby making it more visually appealing. You can say CSS is the magic paint used to add beauty to a website.
Important Concepts to Learn in CSS:
Selectors and Properties
Box Model Layout
Positioning Colors and Gradients
Typography
CSS Units
Media queries
Pseudo-classes and Pseudo-elements
Transitions and Animations
CSS Preprocessors
Once you master the above, you will be ready for the next stage.
Resources to Learn CSS:
After learning pure CSS, or vanilla CSS, as it is called most times, It’s time to learn the CSS framework.
CSS Framework
A CSS framework is a ready-to-use library for building websites. These libraries offer predefined styles, layouts, and components. With the CSS framework, you don’t need to start from scratch because the styles and their utilities have already been pre-made. It helps to build responsive and visually appealing websites and makes web development faster.
There are different types of CSS frameworks, such as Tailwind, Bootstrap, Bulma, Foundation, Semantic UI, and Materialize.
Bootstrap and Tailwind CSS are the most widely used CSS frameworks, but they have different approaches. Tailwind CSS is more difficult to set up but provides flexibility and smaller file sizes, whereas Bootstrap has an easier learning curve but a bigger file size because of its pre-designed components.
Resources to Learn CSS Framework:
Bootstrap Tutorial by FreeCodeCamp
Tailwind Tutorial by FreeCodeCamp
JavaScript
JavaScript is a programming language that helps web developers implement and add functionality such as pop-ups, image carousels, interactive forms, etc., to websites. Javascript makes the webpage respond to certain user actions such as click and input; these actions communicate with the server to fetch or retrieve your data.
Also, it is Javascript that makes things like location, current time, and your cart list display on websites. By combining HTML, CSS, and Javascript, you can build a fully functional website.
Important Concepts to Learn in JavaScript:
Variables and Data Types
Functions
Control Flow (if-else, switch, loops)
DOM Manipulation
Events
Asynchronous JavaScript
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)
Closures and Scope
ES6 Features
Error Handling
AJAX
Modules
Debugging
Event Delegation
Resources to Learn JavaScript:
I’ll recommend watching a YouTube Crash course before reading the documentation so that you don't feel lost while learning.
After learning Javascript, you should proceed to learn at least one of its frameworks. JavaScript frameworks are libraries of pre-written code and tools that offer a structured way of building websites. The goal of these prebuilt codes is to make creating websites quicker, more effective, and easier to maintain. It's just the same as the CSS framework we talked about but with a different convention.
There are different Javascript frameworks. Go through this article by Simran Kaur Arora, https://hackr.io/blog/best-javascript-frameworks, to familiarize yourself with the best JavaScript framework and the one you’ll probably need. I prefer React, so let’s stick with it.
Resources to Learn React:
Crash Course - Web Dev Simplified
Other Tools
Integrated Developer Environment (IDE)
An Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is software that contains a lot of tools and extensions that help a web developer perform several tasks such as writing, editing, and debugging code.
Summarily, an IDE is like Microsoft Word or Google Docs for web developers. IDE used by developers includes PyCharm, VSCode, Xcode, Atom, Android Studio, etc.
Hosting service/Cloud-based service
Web hosting is similar to renting a shop or an apartment to live in. In the case of the website, you're renting a server where all the files that make up your website will be stored. Your domain name is like your apartment name; when visitors type your domain name into their browsers, they will be redirected to your site. Web developers use tools and platforms to host their sites. These include GitHub, Heroku, Vercel, Netlify, etc.
Version Control
Version control software keeps track of all the changes you’ve made to your website. If you’re designing a website and you’ve saved (committed) the changes but noticed that the previous design is better than the current one, with version control software, you can write a command, and you’ll get the previous design back. The most popularly used version control software is Git.
Click here to download Git.
Click here to learn Git and GitHub:
Conclusion
The above roadmap should get you up and running to start building websites. However, regardless of the roadmap, what you need is consistency, persistence, and project-based learning. Once you can commit to your schedule, it is only a matter of time before everything begins to make sense.
Once again, congratulations and good luck on your web development journey.