Five Things You Didn’t Know About Web Development

Featured article by Rick DelGado, Independent Technology Author

Over the years, web development has rapidly grown into one of the most massive job markets in the world. As more technologies are being unearthed, from artificial intelligence to blockchain, demand for web developers is relatively increasing. But even this highly sought after and commonly discussed topic has some surprising and uncommon facts that remain in the dark. Here are five of them:

1. Projections are Promising

Employment for web developers is expected to grow by as much as 15 percent in the next eight years, which is notably faster than the median for all other occupations. One of the key drivers of this positive projection is the monumental growth in the eCommerce space. Online purchases are amounting to billions of dollars each year and are only expected to move up in the next several years. Fortunately, this projected demand will be met with enough supply, as more and more people are choosing to either pursue software engineering and computer sciences after college or switch from a previous industry or role.

2. Frameworks are Growing in Number

There were days when web developers were using the same set of tools as their peers. Nowadays, however, there are different stacks of technologies that people can specialize in, such as MEAN stack, short for MongoDB, ExpressJS, AngularJS, and Node.js. Aspiring web developers who want to jump into the field will find a plethora of frameworks and libraries, such as MeteorJS, which is an all-in-one platform for crafting web and mobile applications using JavaScript syntax, and Django, a high level framework focused on clean and pragmatic development.

3. Continuous Learning is Necessary

As you’ll soon figure out, web development is not something you can learn after a few years of study. It’s a continuously evolving practice. And as new frameworks and versions are released, you’ll have to adapt if you want to remain employed. The best language for web development is the one that your employer uses. When looking for work or planning to build your own app or business, you should choose the language that gets the job done. Other filters to use when choosing a web development language include your main interests, whether it’s game development or mobile app development, and the ease of learning and implementing the language, such as available documentation, being open source, and user-friendly syntax.

4. You Can Do a Lot With HTML

Basic understanding of HTML doesn’t mean you can only do dull, non-interactive web pages. There are a variety of projects you can work on that allow you to do more with less. For instance, you can recognize and synthesize speech with the Web Speech API that exposes components and properties that convert text to speech and vice versa. Another project is a program that displays a color picker. A simple input tag specified with a “color” attribute type will yield a visual color palette to choose from. Lastly, the “picture” element, which allows you to implement a responsive web design without requiring users to download large file sizes. You can specify which images should be displayed based on the available screen resolution.

5. Debugging is Important

Regardless if you’re working on a side project or adding features to an existing software product, expect to do a ton of debugging in your day-to-day routine. You should already have some experience in using common debugging tools, at the very least Chrome Developer tools. Working as a developer will rarely involve creating something new and will instead mostly focus on debugging existing features; therefore, you need to be comfortable using debugging tools.

Final Thoughts

Amidst all the programming languages and tools to learn, novice web developers miss these important facts. As a result, it dampens their ability to grow, learn, and get a job as a web developer. Acknowledge each of these facts and the weight they hold, and make sure you implement them when exploring web development either as a hobby or a career.

by Rick DelGado, Independent Author

“I’ve been blessed to have a successful career and have recently taken a step back to pursue my passion of writing. I’ve started doing freelance writing and I love to write about new technologies and how it can help us and our planet.” – Rick DelGado