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Webdev - need help

Anything considered a "hustle" and not necessarily a CENTS-based Fastlane

Feyyaz Özkalin

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Hey guys,
Just started with codecademy to learn webdevelopment. But I am not sure if I do it right. The lessons are for the basics of html at the moment. Is it necessary to learn all the elements? What is important to develop web pages later? Css, Java?
Which editor could you advise?
Are there other sites to learn coding?
If I code my first website, where could I pick the needed images?

You see, I have lots of questions.
Hope you can help.

Thanks in advance.
 
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astr0

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You probably don't have to learn all the HTML5 semantic elements from the start, but the basic ones like lists, images, tables, typography are really important.

CSS is more important, so don't skip it. Pretty much all major browsers support CSS flexbox & grid now, that makes the layout a lot easier. Also, CSS frameworks like Bootstrap speed up work a lot especially when you don't have much experience with CSS.

If you're going web dev, not design than JavaScript is a must. You'll be writing more Javascript than anything else as a frontend dev. And 100% javascript or different language on the backend. By Javascript I mean JS + Typescript, it's often used on bigger projects because of refactoring and maintenance benefits. Though it adds more boilerplate code so not worth using everywhere.

Almost everyone I know is using Visual Studio Code as an editor. JetBrains WebStorm is also nice, but it's paid and the beginner probably won't use all the additional features. VS Code is also getting better and better.

There should interactive lessons on Javascript. HTML and CSS, just Google. I know only Russian one where my friend learned it.

There are threads here on where to find free stock photos and other images. I'm using Pexels 80% of the time and FontAwesome for icons.

Good luck!

P. S. What's your end goal of learning web development?
 
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Ubu_roi

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Hi Feyyaz,

Whatever you'll do in the future, learning web development is a great idea, so keep doing that.

Visual Studio Code is THE editor right now. And it's free.

For the images, you can get them from any free repository: freeimages.com is one of those.

Html, css and javascript are the basics and yes, you should definitely begin with HTML. When you have a grasp on the main elements (tags) you won't have to write them like you do it now: TIP: have a look at ZEN coding (asa Emmet coding) to save A LOT of your time, from the first minute.

Another tip: while you work on your corse, look for the examples on w3schools.com. They are explained beautifully, you have tons of examples, and you see the end result immediately. This applies to html css and javascript.

My belief is that if you know the main 30 HTML elements, you are good to go.

After you finish CSS (equally important), to get a little boost to your motivation have a look at Bootstrap. You'll be able to create professional-looking web sites very quickly. You'll love it.

Javascript is the hardest of all. The best course I've ever seen (and believe me, I've seen a lot) is on Pluralsight.com, and it's called Rapid Javascript Training. You can try it for free.

When you finish the magic 3 (html, css and js) you have just begun, but you can make basic websites leveraging the "easy" libraries, like Bootstrap and JQuery.

After that, if you are really serious about developing, you should choose a web framework. You need to choose one among Angular, React or Vue, to complete the client side part of web develpment. I've chosen Angular, but any one there is fine.

Then there's the server side. But suggestions on that only after you complete the client side :).

Good luck!
 
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bingnanxu

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Good Luck On Your Journey, know that is going to be highly competitive if you want to get a freelancer job via upwork or freelancercom
 

pawon

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Lots of answers here focus on the frontend.. js, vue, react, etc.

But you don't have to go that route... for example, javascript is less than 10% of what I do.

'learn webdevelopment' is a bit of a broad topic these days... and you probably can't / don't want to learn it al.

If you're 100% fresh I suggest this:

1) Learn HTML
2) Learn CSS

That's the 'easy' stuff.. you should be able to dream it.

Then decide on a direction or specialization:

frontend - all the stuff that happens in the browser: javascript, vue, react, jquery, etc

backend - all the stuff that happens on the server: php, rubym python. Php is the most popular and probably easiest to start with.


Good luck!
 
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astr0

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backend - all the stuff that happens on the server: php, rubym python. Php is the most popular and probably easiest to start with.
Javascript/Typescript is also available there. From a business perspective, it's definitely better to have full stack developers rather than separate frontend and backend ones for small to medium projects. Code sharing for something like validation and constants is also possible within the same language.

As for the framework/libraries, I wouldn't personally recommend jQuery anymore. It's great for adding a small amount of frontend functionality, but the more you add the messier and spaghetti it gets. React (and Vue?) force you to have a modular code, thus easier to maintain, loose-coupled, simpler and much more readable. Angular... not the greatest design decisions in my opinion.
 

Feyyaz Özkalin

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Wow, thank you all for these invaluable and very important informations and experiences. Your suggestion are all close to each other. At first I will go on with codecademy to learn the basics of html and css. After that I will continue with your propesed sites. Thank you all again. I am more motivated to learn now

P. S. What's your end goal of learning web development?
The most important is to learn a new skill for myself. The second goal is to make money with offering the webdev service.. Even if I am far away from this goal
 

astr0

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The most important is to learn a new skill for myself. The second goal is to make money with offering the webdev service.. Even if I am far away from this goal
Are you sure about web dev, not web design? Should be easier to find clients for later as that's pretty much any business that has a bad website from the sales standpoint. It also has lower entry, you pretty much don't have to learn javascript for that. Wordpress is overcrowded on freelancing, bulky and slower than custom static sites, but you don't need a lot of knowledge to get started with simple web sites and get first sales.

WebDev is, in general, for more complex web sites/web apps. Often for enterprises/startups. And it's hard to price using the result-oriented approach, cause the clients usually consider few service companies before making a decision and roughly know what would it cost. The budgets are often much bigger too. It's also less crowded on freelance platforms, but you definitely have to stand out from others as there still lots of competition.
 
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MattR82

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Learn html, css,wordpress and design basics (check out the branding designer course from Mor at Flixframe) - then sales from a course like Fox web school (he is a moderator here). If you enjoy coding more than sales and making money maybe then look at getting into development?
 

Feyyaz Özkalin

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Now you are confusing me. Webdev seems more interesting for me. I am not the designer or have any artistic skills. Because of that I am not sure if this is what I am looking for.
Coding for websites or apps sounds more interesting
 
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MattR82

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Now you are confusing me. Webdev seems more interesting for me. I am not the designer or have any artistic skills. Because of that I am not sure if this is what I am looking for.
Coding for websites or apps sounds more interesting
I wasn't sure because you didn't mention that earlier. I'm the opposite. I like design. Much easier to learn too lol.
 

Feyyaz Özkalin

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In general I received some invaluable and interesting feedback. Thank you all for your time. I will go on working and consider your posts. It was really helpful. Thanks to everybody. If you have more information, just let me know. I am willing to learn
 

Feyyaz Özkalin

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As a general rule, don't wait too long to start your first project. Be willing to struggle through it; that's when you really learn the most. The trainings and books are just support materials, but real learning comes from building stuff.
This is a very nice comment. Yes, you are right. I made the same experience with my current job. It's always better to start doing.
 

OhMyGuersh

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Hey guys,
Just started with codecademy to learn webdevelopment. But I am not sure if I do it right. The lessons are for the basics of html at the moment. Is it necessary to learn all the elements? What is important to develop web pages later? Css, Java?
Which editor could you advise?
Are there other sites to learn coding?
If I code my first website, where could I pick the needed images?

You see, I have lots of questions.
Hope you can help.

Thanks in advance.

1. It is not necessary to learn all the elements. You just need to become familiar with what elements exist, and have some references to help you quickly find what you need to know (either Stack overflow or w3 schools are solid references). Overtime you will integrate new elements in your projects, and they will stick.
2. Html, css, bootstrap, and JavaScript for front end. And you have a wide variety of what you can use for the backend. I'm only familiar with using Python for the backend because it was the language I already knew the most about before I went into web development. I chose it because it can accomplish everything I wanted with my website ideas, it's simple, strong community, and I already had the background. I recommend having an end goal and know what you want out of programming before you worry about what to use for the backend. This is a very opinionated subject and you can end up in some deep rabbit holes getting nothing done fast.
3. Editors: I use VS Code or Atom (vs code preferred)
4. Free images at https://unsplash.com
 

DaDream

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I'm sorry to take over this thread and ask so many questions. I have been reading @Fox threat about building websites for clients. Something which I noticed he does really well is he is able to build websites that load under 700ms as observed with tools like pingdom. I have heavy SEO background and I know well the load speed of the front page in particular plays a huge role in getting results.

I want to start cold calling and offering web development services. I have tested aircraft applications and have done enough coding to be able to work with HTML/CSS. However, I'm still looking for a shortcut. I don't want to code all day.

I looked at some websites built with Page builders like Divi Theme, Elementor and Beaver Builder. The performance grade on most of those was far from optimal taking load times between 2-4 seconds each. I'm invested in getting good results and being able to build websites that load really fast. So I need some advice.

I came across bootstrap: Free Bootstrap Themes & Templates - Start Bootstrap

If I download and modify those themes based on what a potential client needs. (Replacing images/text) Would this be the closest I can get to actually manually coding a website? I ask because I'm just getting started with this. I opened an account with free hosting which is currently PENDING so I can start playing with themes, builders, bootstrap and see if I can level up my skills. I'm using this website another member shared: web tools club - The biggest free tools & Resources for the web industry (KUDOS)

Advice would be much appreciated I want to put my limited time on the right tools to deliver the best results for any potential clients.
 
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MattR82

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I know people that still get page builder sites to load in under 1 second. Just need to learn good optimisation techniques and use good hosting.
 

astr0

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I'm sorry to take over this thread and ask so many questions. I have been reading @Fox threat about building websites for clients. Something which I noticed he does really well is he is able to build websites that load under 700ms as observed with tools like pingdom. I have heavy SEO background and I know well the load speed of the front page in particular plays a huge role in getting results.

I want to start cold calling and offering web development services. I have tested aircraft applications and have done enough coding to be able to work with HTML/CSS. However, I'm still looking for a shortcut. I don't want to code all day.

I looked at some websites built with Page builders like Divi Theme, Elementor and Beaver Builder. The performance grade on most of those was far from optimal taking load times between 2-4 seconds each. I'm invested in getting good results and being able to build websites that load really fast. So I need some advice.

I came across bootstrap: Free Bootstrap Themes & Templates - Start Bootstrap

If I download and modify those themes based on what a potential client needs. (Replacing images/text) Would this be the closest I can get to actually manually coding a website? I ask because I'm just getting started with this. I opened an account with free hosting which is currently PENDING so I can start playing with themes, builders, bootstrap and see if I can level up my skills. I'm using this website another member shared: web tools club - The biggest free tools & Resources for the web industry (KUDOS)

Advice would be much appreciated I want to put my limited time on the right tools to deliver the best results for any potential clients.
Yes, page load matters both for Google and for user experience. There are lots of studies on it.

The most important thing is definitely hosting/CDN... If the link speed is around 40 Kbps then nothing would help.
The second most important thing is the images. They should be optimized, I'm using Squoosh for that.
Keeping CSS and JS size minimal also helps. Load JS asynchronously if you can. There are minimizers that can bundle everything in a single file for faster loading, but when using separate minimized files you should be fine too.
Some of the extremes would be to inline CSS for the top visible part of the page to the HTML itself so it would be styled before everything else gets loaded.

My current project has average load times of 790-900ms, and that's including making few API calls to the backend. It's not server-rendered / static.
 

Lilyvick

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To say frankly, I'm totally dumb at this stuff. When I tried to take some coding learning courses, I always had a necessity to check my knowledge and have help with explanations. And, after a while since finishing, I've forgot almost everything that I've known.
 
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ChewingCandy

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you should definitely learn html and css, not by learning every single element of them but by building project.

learning a css framework is a good way to learn both html and css.

For example, if you learn how to build a static site using bootstrap, you'll get familiar with the basic elements and syntax of both html and css by reading examples in the bootstrap official document.

And then, when you want some customization to your site like change the background color, google will tell you there is a 'background-color' property in almost all html elements.

Maybe not suite for everyone, but this is way better than learning by read a book or tutorial IMO.
 

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