Recently I came across many people asking me how to get into web development. They asked me “how to start?” and “what language to pick?”. Or to me the most interesting, “what tools do i need?”. Some browsed the web and read about php, .net, python or some framework that its name is currently buzzing around.
My answer is “just pick JavaScript”. A lot of developers will jump out of their seats and say something like “it’s a waste of time, learn python, it’s easy”.
But besides that they wont have any other solid reason to back up their recommendation. Anyone who is just starting out should start at the basics and get a strong fundamentals. And that is why I recommend JavaScript.
It has everything you need and most of people have everything to run it. Since all we need is a browser. Obviously a web developer should know HTML and some CSS to build the structure and style the website, app or whatever you are building. But getting the concepts of programming, JavaScript is pretty much perfect.
Just open your browser and start. Learn how to declare variables, get into loops, arrays, etc. — basics at which you start with any programming language.
Then of course there are many other reasons besides the low requirement it has to start. With JavaScript you will learn the basics and with that quickly find out that the concepts translate to other programming languages, and that you can learn some syntax much fast if you know what you have to do logically. After that you can jump into one of the frameworks that you might fancy, like angular, react or vue. Since at the end of the day these frameworks are basically JavaScript.
If not a framework, jump into any other language, since at this point you will be learning the syntax to write out the logic you need for your project.
Another good point that you might want to consider when you are starting out is partly related to the initial setup it needs to even run. When you eventually build something, specially with demo or learning projects, you want to consider the cost of keeping it online. For once JavaScript runs pretty much everywhere since, basically every modern web application uses it in one way or another.
Just like with php, a lot of people will tell you not to learn it, because it’s slow, some even say it’s garbage. But I disagree, It has everything you need. At the beginning
or even at a low scale you shouldn’t be thinking about the most optimal stack, since you are in the initial phase, and your goal is to learn and/or get things going. At core the fundamentals are the same. And once you need performance, you can always optimize your current code, or just get a host with better performance and when you are at the point where you already have a app that would need multiple instances to handle all the traffic, well I’m sure at that point you have already transitioned to the field you set your goal for at the beginning.
So my advice for all the beginners, those who are curious and want to dive into web development is: “just keep it simple, learn the fundamentals and make it a great journey, since that’s what its all about. So, just pick JavaScript”.
