Web Developer Field Guide

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Yesterday brought the beginning, tomorrow brings the end, though somewhere in the middle we became best friends. #BFF 💙

Web development, especially in the last 5+ years, has blown up and the content along with it. There is a lot to learn, and honestly, you can't learn it all. So that begs the question, what do you do next, and where do you go from here; how can you get a job as a Web Developer?

Having made it through to the past 29 blog posts, you now have a better sense of what topics and skills you'll need to become a Web Developer.

In this last article, I will not be introducing any new content or Exercises. Instead, I am going to encourage you to venture forward and start thinking about where you want to end up, and map a way to get there.

In the book "How to Become a Web Developer: A Field Guide," I have created a Field Guide that helps you draw this map. Additionally, there is an option to download a curriculum and hear from other professional developers about how they made it into their fields. All of them did not follow the traditional degree to job path. They give great advice about how to avoid some of the pitfalls that are apparent only with hindsight and experience.

The book covers in much more detail and with additional exercises, the topics covered in the last 29 days. The 29 days are snapshots 📸 from the chapters of that book, which culminate into a final chapter that reviews the "Field Guide." The PDF version of the field guide is a printable resource.

Here is an example of the expanded content found in the book regarding next steps with CSS.

2. CSS

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Skill Level: Easy-Moderate

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It's likely your HTML studies will mix with your CSS studies. I would, however, spend more time on CSS than HTML. There are a lot of important topics I was not able to cover in the CSS chapter, but mention in the Further Reading section.

In addition to CSS, you should spend time learning about CSS Frameworks. There are lots of CSS Frameworks; don't overdo it, just focusing on one is sufficient. Get familiar with that framework's syntax, and if you'd like to use the framework instead of plain CSS in your project.

Note: you should also spend a little time understanding what a CSS framework is. You'll run into frameworks in your further JavaScript studies as well.

You'll know you're there when you can read and write ~50% of the CSS on a web page as well as debug and modify CSS using a browser's Developer Tools.

Project Suggestions

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Using the same HTML page from your HTML project, add CSS to the page in all 3 ways; External, Internal, and Inline. Get comfortable with overriding styles (hint: you'll need to learn at least a little about the cascading mechanism during this process).

Having added styles, try your hand at adding a CSS animation. You don't need to build one from scratch, but try adding a pre-built one and modifying it. A quick search on codepen.io for CSS animations should get you on your way.

⏰ Est. Hours Spent

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• Time studying 10hrs
• Time working on project 25hrs

What's next?

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Yesterday brought the beginning, tomorrow brings the end, though somewhere in the middle we became best friends. #BFF 💙

If the content of these blog posts have been helpful, and you would like to learn more, I encourage you to check out the 📗 "How to Become a Web Developer: A Field Guide" here.

If you have any questions, please feel free to message me on Twitter or contact Fullstack.io for more information.