Have
you ever wondered what it takes to make navigating through a website to get
work done a cakewalk? The answer to your question is front-end development. A
front-end developer is a professional who
develops websites and applications that drive traffic to business by ma king
user interfaces attractive and easily accessible.
With each passing day, businesses are
identifying the necessity of front end development and hiring developers to meet their design requirements. The demand for front-end developers is soaring
continuously in almost every sector. It doesn't matter if you are a
full-time employee or a freelancer, the job is lucrative, taking into account its
comprehensiveness.The Roadmap
*Learn the basics first: The internet is full of programming tips, articles, and forums. However, we recommend that you first go with more structured courses offered by the leading online learning porta Is, such as Udemy, Coursera, and others. Read all that you can about the programming language and the framework of your choice.
* Study great websites and apps: Take some time to explore great web- sites, apps, and try them to understand how they have built a great user experience by applying the right front-end development skills.
*Know your tools: A master knows their craft and toolset well; the same applies to front-end development skills. Take some time to understand the available tools and how to make the best of them. Sometimes, it's even wise to invest in paid ones to save time.
* Practice: Practice makes one prefect. Practice a LOT! Start from small applications and expand to complex use-cases.
*Share the knowledge: As you reach an expert level, participate in forums and programming communities to share your experience. There is nothing like the joy of sharing knowledge and growing further in the domain.
*Ongoing learning: Technology and the programming world are ever changing. It is worth investing some time every week to keep up with industry trends, new tools, frameworks, and technologies. It is also worth spending some time to proactively learn new skills to maintain a leading edge in your career.
The Journey
Building Blocks
HTML: Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is used to create and format web pages. It provides code structures called lags and attributes to properly formatting the sections, headings, links, and paragraphs of the web pages/ applications.
CSS: Cascading Style Sheet empowers you to enhance the look of your website by adjusting the font, layout, and color of your content.
JavaScript: JavaScript is a programming language used on both, the serve-side and client-side, to interactive functionality to websites and applications.
Libraries
A library is a collection of pre-written JavaScript (JS) functions that makes the development of JS-based apps a breeze.
JQuery: JQuery is touted as write-less, do more JS library. The purpose of JQuery is to simplify the process of working with JS. JQuery wraps reusable lines of code into a method, which can be called with a single line of code. It is an easy-to-use API, which is compatible with a multitude of browsers. There are many libraries available for various purposes, such as D3.js, Chart.js, and more.
Front-end or CSS frameworks
These frameworks extended the capabilities of CSS by providing a good starting point for new projects as well as saving a lot of time required for the styling. Bootstrap, Material Design, and Foundation are some of the popular frameworks.
JavaScript
frameworks
JS framework makes working with JS easier and smoother. There are plenty of JS frameworks, but we will go through some of the widely used and popular frameworks. We recommend learning multiple frameworks to maintain a competitive advantage in the job market.
ReactJS: It is one of the most amazing creations of Facebook, that has turned quite a few heads in no time, since its inception. ReactJS is gaining popularity because of its interactive and dynamic UI creation feature. Learn RcactJs and increase your chances of getting selected for some top-paying jobs, where there is a considerable demand for it.
Ember: It is a reliable platform as it handles the complicated UI effectively by supporting two- way data binding. Prestigious platforms like LinkedIn and Netflix use it. Ember is easy to work with because it performs automatic updates in case the content of the application changes.
Backbone: When compared with other frameworks, Backbone is easy to learn. Achieving complex functionalities by shortening the amount of effort required is one of the most dominant features of Backbone.
CSS preprocessors
They are special CSS files that contain mixing variables, functions, and other functionalities. CSS preprocessors equip you with advanced abilities that include adding variables, mixing, functions, etc., avoiding repetitions, and joining multiple files. These days, SASS and LESS are the most in-demand preprocessors. Add a SASS certificate to your resume and stand out from the crowd while applying for a job.
Content Management Systems (CMS)
A CMS supports managing a wide variety of content, i.e., text, images, videos, and audios of a website. You can design a website using a CMS, without having any prior knowledge of developing platforms. There arc different CMS available, but the most popular one is WordPress, which is used by around 60% of the total CMS developers. The most common reason behind using WordPress over other CMS is its flexibility in designing different types of websites. As a front-end developer, you must be familiar with various CMS platforms such as WordPress, Drupal, Magento, Joomla, etc.
RESTful
services and APIs
REST stands for Representational State Transfer. It is a software architectural style that sticks to a set of constraints while creating web services. REST uses a uniform and predefined set of stateless operations to allow requesting systems access to textual representations of web resources. Learning REST will help you in creating APIs for web-based applications in the simplest way possible, owing to its lightweight, highly scalable, and maintainable nature.
Design
With an ever-increasing variety in screen Sims of computer screens, tablets, mobiles, and other devices, it is imperative that your website or application fits the layout of the screen and offers a great user experience. Therefore, learning responsive design is a critical skill these days.
Cross-browser development
It is a process of building a web page that is compatible across a range of browsers. A carefully built, cross-browser website renders a smooth and seamless user experience across all browsing platforms ranging from Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Safari, Internet Explorer, and others. Building and testing a cross-browser experience is a must-have skill.
Tools
Certification and Books
Online learning platforms, such as Udemy, Coursera, and Khan Academy, offer some excellent courses to learn in-depth skills related to all the points mentioned above. It is worth investing in some of the courses as they will reduce your learning curve and get you a great kick start.
*Online communities
Focusing on upscaling your skills is essential, but sometimes you may need advice from peers who may have faced similar challenges. While working on live projects, you would encounter some intricate issues, which could be challenging to crack and address on your own. There are several online forums such as Designer Hangout, Graphic Design Forums, Web design forums.net for front-end developers, where you can seek help, contribute knowledge, and learn a lot.
*Coding competitions
You may have heard of coding competitions like hackathons, but do you know why people participate in coding contests even when the prize money is insignificant? Coding competitions offer you a chance to assess your skills, get exposure to potential networking and employment opportunities, enhance your programming skills, and make you a better team player. We certainly recommend signing up for coding contests to your career, such as "code jam", "hash code", and "kick start" which are hosted by Google, and those hosted by HackerEarth as well.
Additional learning resources
We have compiled some useful online learning resources as well as tools for you to begin learning the technical skills. Good luck with your front-end development career.
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