How To Become a Good Front-End Web Developer?

I started my web development journey back in 2015. I have always wanted to be a full-stack developer. I made the mistake of learning all the technologies simultaneously, which was a bad idea. This only confused me more, and I couldn’t build up the confidence to start doing projects alone.

Just so we are clear, let’s understand who is a front-end developer and how it differs from a back-end developer role.

Imagine Every Website or web application has two major parts.

First is the data users see when they open up your Website. When someone loads your Website, they see the pages, the images, the navigation, the fonts, the layout and the functionalities offered on the Website. This is called UI/UX or user experience. A front-end developer‘s first work order is to develop the UI/UX of the Website through which the ease of interaction of end-users can be maximised.

On the other hand, we have Back-end developers. These people develop and design the server-side application. Their primary responsibilities are to store, create, update, and delete the data and make it available for reading by the front-end developers. 

Now anyone who dedicates 4-5 hours every day for 30 Days can get a good grip on the essential front-end technologies that are the ground on which other front-end technologies are built.

Imagine the Website to be a human. In a human, there are four major parts, the skin, the bones, the muscles and the brain.

Back-end developers work entirely on the brain, while front-end developers work on the rest.

The Important Technologies you need to master as a front-end developer are – HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, JS, JQuery, REST APIs and some Graphic Design. 

Here I will make a compressive Plan on how you can get started with these technologies, and at the end, I will add some Recommendations from my personal experience; please don’t miss that.

Days 1 to 3 – Download any Text editor like Brackets and Start by going through the W3Schools HTML course. This Website will give you a firm grasp of HTML. Every Website built today uses HTML, so it is a fundamental concept.

Day 4 Project – On this Day, I want you to make a very simple-looking website on your local machine. Create 4 Pages – Home, Coantct Page, About Page and service page with different HTML Elements. And save this Project for later. Now I want you not to fuss about too much detailing or styling; we will add it later.

Day 5 – 10- This is where the fun begins. Go through W3Schools CSS  Tutorial. I want you to remember to understand the concepts and make notes. If you don’t understand some ideas, go to youtube and look them up. Remember not to Overburden yourself trying to remember things by heart. You will always have references to go back to.

Day 11- Important: Make a copy of your Project, and in one of those copies,  make your Website Responsive and Add styling to it that you learnt in the CSS course.

Day 12 – 14 – Go through the Bootstrap Tutorial and SKIMP through the concepts. Bootstrap is the most popular CSS library used by every significant Website you can find worldwide. I want you to skim through it because if you know CSS by now, Bootrsap will be a piece of cake, and you can always go back to the internet to refer to the exact Syntax.

Day 15 – Now, take another copy of the Website you created on Day 11, and apply the Bootstrap library to make it responsive. 

Day 16 – 17- I assume you have some programming knowledge. You should skim the JavaScript Language for a few Days W3Schhols JS here. Just do the JavaScript Tutorial Section. Don’t try to start coding in JS just yet or try to master it. You must focus on Syntax and the difference between JS and other languages. THAT IS IT.

Day 18-20: Start with JavaScript DOM and pay more attention. Now you can start coding and apply some of these concepts to your Website Project.

Day 20-25: CODE CODE CODE!!! Start with Jquery here and try to implement everything you learn in your Website Project. This is why it is the most extended time of this course. The JQuery tutorial is relatively tiny, but this is the tool you need to have the most practical grip on, and while doing this tutorial, you will understand why. You will also thank me for not letting you waste your time on things that would have been useless to you in real life.

Day 26-29: In JQuery Tutorial, You will have learnt to call and receive the JSON Data and Put it on your website. Now please do it on your website project. Spend some time Understanding JSON and implementing the APIs on your website. I could give you a list of APIs here, but you must find it independently. But to help you out, here are some ideas, 

• Implement Google Maps
• Implement Any NEWS APIs on your website
• Implement a weather App API on your website.

Comment below if you need any help.

Day 30: Now that you are familiar with the significant concepts any Front-end developer needs to understand, You must learn about the best practices. A front-end developer should keep the front-end part of the website small in size so that the website can load fast. Most of the time, the most critical files on websites are media files. These include images, videos and other forms of media. Go Through these videos to understand how to keep the image size small without sacrificing quality and what tools you need.

Ideas to make this process as fast and fruitful as possible:

• Do not spend too much time trying to program in JavaScript. If you know a programming language and do not wish to become a JavaScript Developer, learn the syntax and Spend more of your time with JavaScript DOM concepts.
• JSON, REST APIS and JQuery are the essential skills you need to create any website you want.
• If you find certain concepts of CSS or HTML complicated, try looking them up on youtube or skip them for now. Usually, when you understand different ideas, the past ones become clearer.
• Do not get hooked on any particular technology. You aim to become a good front-end developer and not to do a PhD in any of these technologies.