Road To A Full-Stack Web Developer

So you’re considering to learn web development skills, and you’ve heard that becoming a full stack developer is the way to go. That’s very savvy considering full-stack developers have both the front end and back end development skills most tech teams need. Well, Creating software isn’t that easy. There is a ton of things to consider. Especially when it comes to web development, web development can be challenging to get started with. Not only are there several basic languages to learn — HTML, CSS, and JavaScript — but there are also so many tools and libraries that web developers need to use. But don't be afraid we are going to cover all of these in detail.

Now, it's 2020, and full-stack web development is needed more than ever. So are you ready to begin your journey? Excited huh?

What is Full-stack Development?

Before starting your journey on becoming a Full-stack developer, it is equally important to understand what does Full-Stack development means? Basically, full-stack development refers to creating both the Front end and back end of the website or an app. Now you must be wondering what these terms mean? Let's get deeper into both of these.

Front End Web Development

Front end developers build the visible parts of websites that users see and interact within their web browsers. Front-end web development is also known as client-side development. It is the practice of producing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for a website or Web Application so that a user can see and interact with them directly. Now let us dive deeper into each of these.

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the backbone of the Web. Every website you visit is built with HTML. It takes care of all the structure and content. HTML5 is the current iteration of HTML on the Web, although sites built with older versions still run fine in your browser. HTML can be the lone warrior alone i.e. entire websites can be build using HTML only; although they would be very slow, less pleasing to the eye still get the job done.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) Here comes the guy who changes how your website is going to look. CSS sets the colors, fonts, background images, and even the way the page is laid out (you can use CSS to arrange the HTML elements on a page however you want, even if it’s different than the order they’re arranged in the HTML file). CSS3 is the current iteration of CSS on the Web, and it adds a ton of features for things like basic interactivity and animations.

Now, you can create a website with just HTML and CSS, But if you want to settle in the game of Web Development, you have to make JavaScript your best friend because JavaScrip is the gamechanger (plus, it’s what’s causing all the aforementioned blurriness). To put it simply, JavaScript lets you add in interactivity, more complex animations and even makes it possible to build fully-featured Web applications.

Now, most of you will be thinking if only these three are required to make a front-end website, it's quite easy to develop one. But that's not the true plain javascript or vanilla javascript complicates things a lot although it's convenient in writing small web applications but when it comes to large Websites and apps, it becomes quite cumbersome. But hey, we live in 2020, and we have sorted all things to unleash the power of JavaScript. Let me introduce you to the front-end libraries and framework of JavaScript. Although there is a large no of front-end frameworks, we gonna cover only the popular ones so tighten your seatbelts and let's go.

1. React.js

If you have ever read something about Web Development it's almost impossible that you didn't come across the word React it's almost inevitable. React (also known as React.js or ReactJS) is an open-source, front end, JavaScript library for building user interfaces or UI components. It is maintained by Facebook and a community of individual developers and companies and is the most popular front-end framework out there. React can be used as a base in the development of single-page or mobile applications. However, React is only concerned with rendering data to the DOM, and so creating React applications usually requires the use of additional libraries for state management and routing. Redux and React Router are respective examples of such libraries.

One of the most significant features of React is the components. React code is made of entities called components, making it very easy to maintain the code as no part is dependent on other parts of the code. Components can be rendered to a particular element in the DOM using the React DOM library. When rendering a component, one can pass in values that are known as “props”. Some of the major and famous companies that use React.js are Netflix, Khan Academy, Asana, Facebook, UberEats.

2. Angular

The only framework that can challenge the legacy of React is Angular. While to learn React you don't have to learn any other language as it's completely based on JavaScript but Angular is based on Typescript so you have to learn that too to master Angular although it's quite similar to JavaScript.

Angular (commonly referred to as “Angular 2+” or “Angular v2 and above”) is a TypeScript-based open-source web application framework led by the Angular Team at Google and by a community of individuals and corporations. Angular is a complete rewrite from the same team that built AngularJS. Major websites made using Angular are JetBlue, Lego,iStock Photo, Freelancer, etc.

3. Vue.js

After React.js and Angular, the most famous front-end framework is Vue.js although it's quite new Vue.js features an incrementally adaptable architecture that focuses on declarative rendering and component composition. The core library is focused on the view layer only. Advanced features required for complex applications such as routing, state management, and build tooling are offered via officially maintained supporting libraries and packages with Nuxt.js as one of the most popular solutions

Another feature is Vue.js lets you extend HTML with HTML attributes called directives. The directives offer functionality to HTML applications and come as either built-in or user-defined directives. Major Websites that use Vue.js are Ninegag, Behance, Nintendo, etc.

Now you must be thinking do I need to learn all these frameworks and if not then which one should I learn. Before discussing that let's see the trend the world is following

From the data, it is quite evident that React>Angular>>>Vue in terms of popularity but what about features and functionality and which one should be used in the beginning. Each framework has its own pros and cons and we are not going deep into the technical aspects right now, but for a beginner, I have mentioned which framework should be used when and which not.

When to use React: React is used for building the user interface, especially when you want to develop single-page applications. It is the most robust front-end framework for developing an interactive interface with less time since you can reuse the components.

When not to use React: When you don’t have hands-on experience with Javascript, React isn’t the recommended option. Also, for inexperienced developers, the JSX learning curve is a bit tough.

When to use Angular Angular augments the performance of browser-based applications by dynamically updating the contents in no time since it uses two-way data binding. For enterprise based applications and dynamic web apps, using Angular is the best bet.

When not to use Angular Angular is a complete solution as a frontend framework. If you want to build applications with limited scopes, you will not be able to use the resources that Angular provides. When you have a more minor size team, opt for a smaller framework with fewer complexities and simple syntax.

When to use Vue: Vuejs is recommended for flexible design structures. It lets you design everything from scratch and is successful in developing giant projects as well.

When not to use Vue: If you think the support community would be there to answer the complexities, Vuejs is not the right path to go. Also, the applications requiring stable components aren’t suitable to be built with Vuejs since the framework has shown problems with the stability of components.

After discussing the major aspects of front-end development it's time to get our hands dirty and let's introduce the real devil of the field the back-end development.

Back End Web Development

Looks do not matter is a famous saying but is justified here as well although a website needs to look cool but it's useless unless it's functional and hosted so that others can see your website and here comes the magician the Back End developer. Back end Development refers to the server-side of development where you primarily focus on how the site works. Making updates and changes in addition to monitoring the functionality of the site will be your primary responsibility.

This web development type usually consists of three parts: a server, an application, and a database. Code written by back end developers is what communicates the database information to the browser. Anything you can’t see easily with the eye, such as databases and servers, is a back-end developer's work. Back end developer positions are often called programmers or web developers

So an obvious question must be coming to your mind, How to learn backend development. Well, there are lots of languages you can learn, here we are gonna discuss some of the most popular languages used.

Python

You just can't keep Python out of the game even for a few seconds, Developers’ eyes start gleaming just with the mention of Python. It is the beauty of this fast-growing programming language for the backend. Programmers from all across the globe like this versatile language for its ability to be used for both desktop and web development. Adding the fact that it has a variety of tutorials available which makes it easy to learn it and Django is the framework that is key to Back end development using Python

Now its time to take a dig at what is Django

Django is a Web framework written in Python. It provides a set of tools and functionalities that solves many common problems associated with Web development, such as security features, database access, sessions, template processing, URL routing, internationalization, localization, and much more., So, what’s so special about Django? For starters, it’s a Python Web framework, which means you can benefit from wide a range of open source libraries out there. The Python Package Index repository hosts over 116K packages (as per 6 of Sep. 2017). If you need to solve a specific problem, the chances are someone has already implemented a library for it.

It has simple and easy to comprehend syntax than other prevailing backend languages. Developers who use Python call it readable, beautiful, and elegant code on Stack Overflow.Python share some similarities with Ruby such as both are open-source, dynamically typed, and object-oriented languages. And, the difference between them is of popularity (Python is gaining more popularity than Ruby).

Ruby or Ruby on Rails (RoR)

Ruby is a web development language that has been built on the Ruby programming language. It has a large variety of tools to build basic tasks from creating a simple blog with one line of code. This language allows the developers to build and launch apps quickly. In terms of prototyping, it is similar to Python. Being open-source, it can be built upon and modified. In terms of leniency, it is harder than PHP.

Specialty- Ruby can automate repetitive chores, build mobile, games, and web apps, create prototypes, etc.

PHP

Here comes the most popular, most used as well as the oldest backend programming language. A number of big companies like Facebook, Viber, Mint, Hootsuite, and more have used PHP as the backend programming language. There was a time when Back end development was referred by PHP, Not only big brands, but PHP is also the most preferred language on the world wide web.

While you might chuckle at the greenness of the recursive acronym, statistics indicate that PHP is not be taken lightly: the language is today in use on over twenty million Web sites and more than a third of the world’s Web servers-no small feat, especially when you consider that the language has been developed entirely by a worldwide community of volunteers and is freely available on the Internet at no cost whatsoever!

Over the last few years, PHP has become the de facto choice for the development of data-driven Web applications, notably on account of its scalability, ease of use, and widespread support for different databases and data formats. An active open source community maintains it and it can work seamlessly on cross-platforms such as Windows, Mac, and UNIX. It is a dynamically typed language and it comes with a variety of solutions.

JavaScript

Not to be confused with Java, JavaScript is a language that can be used for both the front end and back end. It’s a great language for beginners because it is a higher-level language and there is little setup involved (you can start coding in your browser. Especially Node.js with express.js forms the perfect combo to start off your Back-end Development.Node.js development became a huge thing over the last 3–4 years. Its popularity among the developers can be very clearly seen on Google Trends.Node.js is a low-level platform. To make things easier and more interesting for developers, thousands of libraries were built upon Node.js.

Many of those established over time as popular options. Here is a non-comprehensive list of the ones I consider very relevant and worth learning:

• Express
  One of the most simple yet powerful ways to create a web server. Its minimalist approach and unopinionated focus on the core features of a server is key to its success.
• Meteor
  An incredibly powerful full-stack framework, empowering you with an isomorphic approach to building apps with JavaScript and sharing code on the client and the server. Once an off-the-shelf tool that provided everything, it now integrates with front-end libraries such as React, Vue and Angular. Meteor can be used to create mobile apps as well.Next.js
  This is a framework to render server-side rendered React applications.
• Micro
  This is a very lightweight server to create asynchronous HTTP microservices.
• Socket.io
  This is a real-time communication engine to build network applications.

After Discussing so many back-end languages, although there are many more left but you must be thinking now which one should be preferred over the other one and most importantly Why? So let's have a look at this data

In terms of popularity, the best language is Python, and for community size winner is Node. This can be explained that many people are curious about Python because it is being studied at schools, but not so many use it at work. The community growth trend is back at Python, so huge community growth is expected in the near future.

For a permanent job, it will be easiest to find a job if you are programming Java, Node, or Kotlin. If you want to become a freelancer — good choices are Node, Kotlin, Ruby, and Golang.

Based on the research, if you are going to build microservices — the best options are Python and Node. Other good choices are PHP and Go, but only if you are using Docker containers, as their support by serverless is limited. There are 4 top-performing backend languages with similar performance: Java, C#, Go, and Kotlin. The slowest languages in Comparison are Ruby and Python. They are around 2 times slower, then PHP, and around 5 times slower, then Java.

In terms of integration capabilities, the best programming languages are PHP and Java. Most of the SDKs are made for them. Also, good choices are Python and Node. This comparison also shows why Java is still language number one for enterprise applications — as it has the best in class performance combined with the best integration capabilities.

I hope this will help you figure out what is full-stack web development and the best languages you can try your hands on. Hope next time I am gonna meet a full-stack developer.