Web Development for Beginners: Where to Start?

Realistically, you could start your web development journey with YouTube tutorials, W3Schools’ articles, or Stack Overflow forums, but where do you start with making sense of all the material and info that’s available? What path do you take to become a professional web developer?

If you haven’t already, you can start by bookmarking W3Schools and Stack Overflow, as they are useful tools for web developers to have around, even if they can seem overwhelming. It may help to think of them like tech dictionaries with community aspects for resolving issues.

Next, you should check out the Beginner’s Guide to Web Development for a more thorough understanding of what web development is, what professional web developers do, and how you can make the most out of learning web development, no matter what path you take to learn it.

And, of course, here are some helpful tips every web development beginner should consider.

Start with Your Goals in Mind when Learning Web Development

Start with Your Goals in Mind when Learning Web Development

As a beginner learning web development, it may seem counterintuitive to think about what you want to do with your new skills years from now, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

You need to start with the end in mind if you plan on making web development a part of your life, especially part of your professional career. So, ask yourself, what do you want to develop for the web? Web-based apps? Small business websites? Something that hasn’t been invented yet?

Do you want to work for yourself? Do you want to be a part of a gigantic tech company?

Would I enjoy the day-to-day work of a web developer? Do I like problem-solving?

As you think more about what web development can do for you and why you are interested in learning it in the first place, you’ll come to understand what you need to do to realize your goals.

Start By Focusing on Knowing Where to Look Instead of Memorization

Start By Focusing on Knowing Where to Look Instead of Memorization

If you skipped the introduction, be sure to bookmark W3Schools and Stack Overflow. These resources (as well as numerous others) can help you avoid worrying too much about memorizing HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and the hard-to-remember aspects of web development.

If you’re new to development, you may be wondering why you should focus more on knowing where to look for answers instead of just memorizing these languages and rules. The truth is, you could memorize all of these things, but that won’t help you much when things inevitably change, and things change frequently in the world of web development.

Your time and effort would be better spent knowing that there is an answer out there and where to find that answer. Once you know that, then you can start progressing more quickly through web development material, trusting that you’ll be able to find what you need later.

Start By Knowing You Can Learn Throughout Your Web Dev Career

This point goes hand in hand with the second point about not memorizing rules. Basically, you need to understand that web development is a constantly changing and evolving field, so you will have to keep learning throughout your web development career in order to succeed.

How can you keep learning throughout your career?

Easy. Don’t memorize rules so that you have to refer to updated and relevant information.

Web development is a job for problem-solvers who enjoy learning new ways to solve problems.

How Serious Are You About Learning Web Development?

Remember, everybody starts somewhere. Even if you don’t know much about web development right now, if you take it seriously, you could learn what you need to know to enter the job market in a matter of months. And, Devmountain’s 4-week Coding Basics program can help you focus on actionable skills you actually need for making your career change possible.

Learn more about Devmountain’s 4-week Coding Basics course.

Recommended Reading

Beginner’s Guide to Web Development

How to Learn Web Development

Why You Should Code Every Day

Web Development for Beginners: Where to Start?

Related posts