One of the industries that are constantly evolving is the computer industry. This is constant learning that deserves hard work if you want to be a professional web developer. The great demand for these professionals has grown rapidly since companies require experts who are capable of meeting the demands of this new digital age.
If you are thinking of a secure future and you are passionate about the world of computing, choosing professional web development represents a great opportunity for you.
Once you have extensive knowledge, you will be able to program and create various applications so that any web page can work without any problem.
This short article contains the necessary information for you to become an expert professional web developer.
Why choose web development as a career path
Web development represents a great opportunity to find a job given the number of vacancies in this sector and the excellent salaries offered to these professionals.
Web developer has the opportunity to specialize in a specific area and master various technologies and programming languages that allow them to stand out from the rest.
This is considered one of the races with the greatest future, which by its very nature and constant changes, will always be in force.
Given the rise of web development and its benefits, many people have made the decision to take crash courses and take advantage of the new trend of professional preparation.
An alternative to learning is that you sign up for a Bootcamp or intensive training program and in a period between 3 to 6 months, you will be ready to work.
In a Bootcamp you can obtain a specialization, language or certain tool, you will only pay for what you want to learn and they can help you to enter the labor field.
Types of web developers
- Front-end web developer, who is in charge of the web design or attractiveness of the site and its functionality.
- Back-end web developer, who is in charge of everything related to the infrastructure and optimal performance of the website.
- Full stack web developer, whose function covers the previous two and also understands the logic of the company.
Advantages of studying web development
- Multiple job opportunities, especially for growing companies that require websites with digitized information and constant updates.
- There is the possibility of working remotely and scheduling your time and work schedule at your convenience.
- It allows the development of professional skills and constant learning, in order to improve your ability to solve various situations.
- You can develop skills and creativity that will benefit you even in your personal life.
- It allows you to work with a great level of freedom, being able to choose the technologies and programming language of your choice and create applications according to your knowledge.
- It is possible to obtain excellent salary benefits and even more if you have extensive experience.
Professional skills that help you develop
When you train in the area of web development, you manage to obtain certain professional skills:
- Knowledge of programming languages, from the easiest to the most complex.
- Extensive knowledge of computer systems.
- Skills oriented towards the improvement of programming.
- Writing reports and drawing various diagrams.
- Learning about design techniques.
Personal skills that help you develop
- Provision for communication and teamwork.
- Self-criticism capacity that allows you to improve your performance.
- Better time management.
- Ability to analyze and concentrate to solve problems of various kinds.
- Tolerance and patience.
The career potential for web developers
Currently, in many countries, there are innumerable vacancies in the technological area that require specialized personnel. Those people who learn skills and abilities quickly by studying web development will find better opportunities to enter the job market.
2. Languages for web development and mobile development
2.1. Front-end web development
The web was created in 1989 by Tim Berners Lee with the aim of helping researchers in their work with documents that link together, creating a gigantic network of information. In order for these documents to be linked, he created the HTML language, which gives structure to the information and allows links to be added.
Years later, in December 1996, CSS was created to give color and design to web pages and in 1997, the first JavaScript standard was launched (although its development began in 1995). In summary, the three web technologies are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. (And you can learn all three at EDteam).
JavaScript is the only programming language that the browser understands, but because it was designed in a hurry, it had several problems and gaps. So in 2012, Anders Hejlsberg (the same creator of C# and . NET), created TypeScript, a language that adds functionality to JavaScript (but must be transpiled to JavaScript for the browser to understand it). Master the basics of one of the most popular languages on the web in our course: JavaScript from scratch.
Something similar happens with CSS, which has limitations because it is not a programming language, so Sass was created to give it those extra functions. So even though they’re not native web technologies, TypeScript and Sass should be on your list of front-end languages. Master the language that makes the web beautiful in our course: CSS from scratch.
In addition, there is a technology called Web Assembly, which allows you to write the logic for the browser with languages like C++, C#Rust or Go, compile them, and send that compilation to the browser. Thanks to this, web apps are getting closer and closer to operating system apps. For example, Figma.
2.2. Backend web development
In the backend, the choice of languages is wider. Basically, any language that can run on the server can be a backend language. However, the most used are Java, Python, Ruby, and PHP, these are the classics that appeared in the 90s.
From the 2000s onwards, we have C#, Go, and JavaScript. And although JavaScript was released in the 90s, it was only in 2009 that it could be used as a backend language thanks to Node.js. Remember that all these technologies can be learned a the team!
In that sense, with any of these options, you can develop a robust backend and access many job options.
23. Native mobile development
For native iOS, the language used from the start was Objective C, a variation of C that added object-oriented programming and was used by Next, the company Steve Jobs founded after being fired from Apple. So when Apple bought Next, Objective C became the official language for development on macOS and later on iOS.
However, Objective C has a very complicated syntax and is one of the least favorite languages for programmers. That’s why in 2014, Apple announced its new language that would become its official language for mobile development, and even desktop: Swift.
Swift is interoperable with Objective C, so you can start writing Swift in a project that uses Objective C and it will work. Also, Swift was released as Open Source in 2015.
For Android, the language chosen at the beginning was Java, because it had the great advantage of being written once and running anywhere, so it was an excellent option for Android. Everything was going very well until in 2010, Oracle bought Sun Microsystems, the company that created Java, and as the new owners of the language, Oracle sued Google for more than 9 billion dollars, accusing it of copying parts of the Java code to build Android.
This trial lasted 11 years and Google finally won in 2021. You can expand on this news in our Youtube video: Google beats Oracle in the technology trial of the decade. For this reason, Google did not want to continue using Java and needed an option.
Luckily, in 2011, the Jetbrains company created a language called Kotlin, interoperable with Java. Jetbrains is known for developing IDEs like IntelliJ Idea, WebStorm, Pycharm, and others, and these IDEs are built with Java, so Jetbrains was looking for a less verbose and easier-to-write but Java-compatible language with Kotlin.
Little by little Kotlin grew, libraries were written to integrate it into Android Studio and in 2017, Google named Kotlin the official language for Android development and created a foundation to finance its development. And you know what? you can learn it in team: Kotlin from scratch.
This doesn’t mean that Java can’t continue to be used on Android, but just like Objective C on iOS, it’s no longer the default for new projects. So we can conclude that the official language for iOS is Swift and for Android, it is Kotlin.
2.4. Cross-platform mobile development
For cross-platform development, the languages you can use are Google’s Dart, Microsoft’s C#, or JavaScript. Later we will talk a little more about these languages because they are supported by frameworks to create mobile applications.