What Languages Do You Need to Know to Become A Web Developer?
There are TONS of programming languages you can learn as a web developer. Which one(s) should you learn and what does the languages do?
Web development is one of the biggest and ever-growing industries in the cyber world. Of course, the internet is becoming larger and larger every single second and the need for filling the space is MASSIVE!
What do you think of web development?
When we’re talking about web development, we’re actually talking about the tasks that are associated with developing websites for hosting via either intranet or internet. Generally, web development is related to the non-designing part of a website.
Web development takes a lot of things into account, for example, coding and writing markup for the website. When you’re working as a web developer, you have to work with server-side and client-side scripting, network configuration, web content development, and others.
Developing a website
There are a number of things you have to consider when developing a website.
First of all, you have to decide how the website would work. Based on the outline, you’ll have to start working your way toward the finished result.
The first thing starts by getting a hosting service. The hosting service is responsible for holding all the data on the website and deliver it to the visitors. It can be dummy hosting or real hosting solutions. In most of the cases, the website is first developed at a local hosting (XAMPP or similar), then uploaded on a cloud hosting (Google, Amazon, Microsoft, HostGator, GoDaddy etc.).
During the development, it’s necessary to design the core and the UI carefully. The core includes all the programming, scripting, database management, and content management while the UI is the interface that will connect the visitor with the core functions.
Both parts are extremely important. If one fails, the other won’t be enough to protect the failure of the project. If the core is poorly built, then it will cause a lot of issues (stability, security, and others) that will eventually lead all the visitors to never come back. The same goes for the UI. Without a good-looking and understandable UI, visitors will hardly even look at the name of the website!
Programming in web development
As you can tell, this is the most significant part of the web development cycle. It’s the place that ultimately decides the future of a website project. Depending on the programming, the website can be the next masterpiece or complete garbage.
Programming is essentially setting the logic and workflow. In the case of a website, this is where the website decides which content to show, what data to pull, store and modify on the database, and what to do with certain user interactions.
Programming language for web development
Becoming a developer is a dream of many. Do you aspire to be a web developer?
There are a number of skills that must be achieved for becoming a successful web developer. You have to be a good programmer and learn a wide variety of programming languages for encoding your thoughts into an effective website.
Over time, a lot of programming languages have evolved for web development, including powerful ones like PHP, JavaScript, TypeScript, ASP.NET, Ruby, Python, and others. Of course, some of them have been around for quite a long time (PHP, JavaScript etc.) while there are other promising ones (TypeScript, GO etc.).
Must-know programming languages
If you ever wish to become a web developer, there are certain programming languages you MUST master. Otherwise, you’ll face a lot of trouble on the road. Your portfolio will also be less likely to attract potential employers.
Here are the 3 languages you MUST learn for becoming a successful web developer. In fact, these languages are the root of all web development.
HTML
It serves as the core of the web. Every single website you browse is nothing more than a clever skeleton of HTML with seasonings of CSS, JavaScript, and others. Without HTML, there would be no web. In fact, HTML is one of the 3 important bases that constitute the World Wide Web. HTML is responsible for describing the web page.
HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. It’s a markup language.
Whenever you’re trying to access a web page, the web browser sends the request to the hosting server. Upon receiving the request, the website processes send an HTML file with different enhancements embedded into it. The web browser then renders the HTML document and all the essential enhancements for showing all the beautiful interfaces you’ll actually see.
CSS
If HTML serves as the skeleton, then CSS serves as the muscles. It defines how the skeleton will present itself on the client.
CSS works as the primary enhancer of HTML. HTML comes up with a number of parts – paragraphs, tables, sections, and others. By default, they would appear in a simple format. With the help of CSS, it’s possible to define how a specific HTML part is going to be rendered by the web browser.
CSS is the second pillar of the 3 constituents of the World Wide Web.
JavaScript
JavaScript is essentially a programming language for the HTML and the web. It’s widely used in almost every single websites these days. Along with HTML and CSS, JavaScript is the 3rd member of what constituents the World Wide Web.
It’s a high-level interpreted programming language that conforms to the ECMAScript specifications. It’s dynamic, prototype-based, weakly typed and multi-paradigm. JavaScript is universally supported by all the modern web browsers. There are MILLIONS of JavaScript frameworks out there for building the most powerful websites. Angular, React, Vue.js, Meteor, Ember etc. are just to name a few.
You’ll find an application of JavaScript universally. The power of JavaScript has now extended to other sectors like web and mobile app development.
Despite sharing a similarity in name with Java, JavaScript is completely different than Java. However, you may find syntax similarities between them. JavaScript is also an object-oriented programming language.
Other programming languages to learn
Once you’ve mastered the 3 aforementioned languages, then you are free to widen your reign of mastery. It’s difficult to keep things straight from here on. The field is always evolving with new technologies and improvements over the classic techs. Some of the new ones stay forever, some of them just fade away.
Here are all the programming languages that offer a solid basement with a bright future.
PHP
Maybe you saw that coming or not but PHP is one of the strongest programming languages out there for web development.
PHP stands for Hypertext Preprocessor. PHP scripts are executed on the server end and generally, the output results in an HTML document. It’s an open-source scripting language that’s used extensively in lots of scenarios. It’s really strong as a server scripting language for making dynamic and interactive web pages.
Why learn PHP? It’s because PHP is a robust language. There are TONS of popular and strong frameworks that take the benefit of PHP. It’s powerful enough to be at the core of WordPress – the biggest blogging system on the web! The largest social network (Facebook) is also powered by PHP.
PHP is actively maintained with regular updates to the ecosystem for keeping it relevant to the current world. That’s why despite being a 20+ years old technology, PHP is worth learning.
TypeScript
TypeScript is still a new programming language on the horizon. However, it’s showing a really good promise to become the next mainstream language with the help of the ever-growing community and adoption of major projects (like Angular).
TypeScript is a very powerful, object-oriented programming language that’s developed and maintained by Microsoft. TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript. So, any JavaScript code is a valid TypeScript code. When compiled, TypeScript results into a fully-functional JavaScript code.
TypeScript dramatically simplifies JavaScript codes, allowing easier reading and better debugging. With default type checking, TypeScript dramatically reduces the painful bugs devs often run into when using typeless coding.
Python
It’s another well-known programming language that has gained a lot of traction as a mainstream programming language. As a result, Python is becoming a major powerhouse for the web platform.
The original goals of Python are really ambitious.
- Intuitive: Suitable for even the first-time programmers
- Open-source: Anyone can contribute to the development
- Powerful: Rich in feature to compete with mainstream languages like C, C++, and Java
Interestingly, Python has succeeded in achieving all of them!
For the web platform, there are already a large number of frameworks, including but limited to, Django, and Flask. Django offers a straightforward, focused, all-inclusive experience while Flask offers greater flexibility and full control.
Ruby
Just like Python, Ruby is another high-level interpreted language that puts focus on the productivity of the programmers while incorporating shorter and simpler syntaxes.
The purpose of developing Ruby was creating a TRUE object-oriented programming language with a strong focus on “less is more” philosophy. As you can guess, that’s an extremely beneficial factor for lots of situations, especially if you’re on a tight schedule or building a website on a low budget. With the help of simple plugins and frameworks, it’s possible to speed up the development a lot.
One of the most widely used frameworks for Ruby is “Ruby on Rails”. RoR offers significant flexibility when integrating apps into new systems, reducing time and cost.
GO
GO is one of the newest members in the world of web development. It’s a full-fledged programming language that’s created by a team of devs at Google in 2009. Since its initial release, GO is actively maintained, thanks to its ever-increasing community. Over the last 9 years, GO has earned a good reputation for being an intuitive and flexible platform.
With popular and simple syntax (similar to C++), GO is an attractive choice for developers right out of the gate. It successfully solves a number of small problems and backend issues while developing large scale web app. However, it’s a lightweight platform with a fast performance like most other compiled languages.
GO is a strong choice for those who are already familiar with C, C++, and Java. With a tech giant like Google backing it up, GO is a strong candidate for adding to your portfolio.
Elixir
High-profile web services like Pinterest, Inverse and Discord use Elixir at their core. Undoubtedly, there are tons of features that Elixir offers to web developers.
Elixir is developed on the Erlang platform. One of the prime benefits with Elixir is handling an enormous amount of concurrent tasks with ease. For making the context clear, I mentioned the services that incorporate the power of Elixir. For example, Discord is always having concurrent users doing a number of things (chatting, speaking and others). Pinterest is a huge platform with a collection of images and stories.
One of the strongest things about Elixir is Phoenix. You may have already heard the name before. It’s one of the most popular Elixir frameworks. Phoenix allows data processing at the speed of light without sacrificing security, reliability, and performance.
Other programming languages
Now, most of these programming languages are useful for the server-side. For the client-side, HTML, CSS and JavaScript are essential. PHP, Python, GO, Elixir etc. are a part of the server-side implementations.
It’s possible to use other mainstream languages to integrate with the web service. For example, Java is a well-known programming language for powering the web platform. It’s also possible to develop other parts of the service with different programming languages like C, C++, Scala, Groovy etc.
Learning programming languages for the web
At the current age, there’s literally no shortage of tutorials on all the programming languages I mentioned above. You can learn all of them for free or, you can purchase a paid course on Udemy.
Here, I’ve collected all the free and paid (Udemy) courses on the main programming languages I mentioned above.
- W3Schools: The best place to get started for beginners. You can learn to start from simple to advanced concepts and usage of a programming language and master it in no time. For accelerating the procedure, there are a plethora of example codes there.
Once you’ve mastered, you can also take the W3Schools certification for proving your mastery on that particular language! - Tutorialspoint: One of the biggest free repositories for those who are interested in programming. It includes tutorials on all the programming languages mentioned above.
- Codecademy: A nice place to get started with different programming languages with interactive and easy tutorials. Each tutorial is spliced into small, interactive and powerful lessons. If you can’t complete one lesson, you can’t progress further. The challenge is what makes Codecademy as a favorite tutorial source.
- Khan Academy: Khan Academy is well-known for some of the best tutorials on various topics. There are also a large number of available tutorials on web development. Check them out!
- YouTube: It’s the most popular video sharing platform we all know and love. It’s become mainstream for both entertainment and education. There are a number of tutorials available on YouTube on all the programming languages you’ll ever meet in your entire life.
- Udemy: If you’re having a rough time figuring out all the tutorials from all the free resources scattered throughout the web, then Udemy is the ultimate solution.
It’s a place where you can get all the professional tutorials on all the skills required to succeed in web development. There are occasional sales going on where you can get a course of $100+ for just $10-$15!
Final Thoughts
Web development is always going to be present, no matter what time it is. As long as the internet lives, there will be web developers. The internet is growing at an exponential rate, so is the field of web development. For filling in the gaps, there’s no alternative other than the web developers.
With the ever-growing field, you’re guaranteed to find a place in the market. There will always be freelancing jobs for web developers. If you’re a really good one, then you may even get a chance to work with big names like Google or Microsoft!
Web development gives you ample opportunity for employment. Moreover, it’s a fun world to delve into. Overall, it’s a quite viable career for the long term. Learn all the skills necessary and become the master of your own!
