Become a
highly skilled
software developer

HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are the core languages of the web.

HTML is used to tell the browser what is on the page (text, images, videos).

CSS is used to style the page (colors, background colors, font sizes, spacing).

JavaScript is used to manipulate the page to make it interactive (hide/show items on click).

All developers use computers and a common set of tools for their work.

React is one of the main JavaScript frontend libraries/frameworks (Angular, React, and Vue).

A is a reusable set of code written by another developer so we don't have to reinvent the wheel everytime we start a new project. A is set of patterns, files/folders, and rules that help standardize applications so we can build faster.

React is a library that uses "components", "state", and "props" to build complex, interactive webpages. There's lots of demand for React related work in the job market right now.

Frameworks like Next.js or Gatsby are used with React to create really fast and efficient websites/apps. They handle things like URL routing, optimizing images, and optimizing production builds.

Node JS is a "JavaScript runtime" built on Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine . It has a varity of uses in web development and is necessary to build modern JS apps.

Node JS comes with a package manager called npm. This helps you easily install and use JS libraries. All projects that utilize npm packages have a config file called package.json that allow you to specify what libraries you need and which version.

Node.js can also be used as a server for your backend. Express.js is the most common framework for Node.js backends and lets you do things like save data to a database or integrate with other people's APIs (application programming interfaces).

Ruby on Rails is a backend framework built in Ruby.

It speeds up development and organizes your code so it's easy to maintain.

Rails is built around a pattern called MVC (model, view, controller). are files that represent objects and define the attributes/logic for those objects. are how the objects are displayed to the user (usually HTML or JSON). are responsible for routing (redirects, 404s) and interating with models (saving/updating objects).

Rails teaches a lot of great best practices, is popular for web development, and is a great skill in your developer toolbelt. Read more on Wikipedia.

Once you have an app built, you need somewhere to host/serve it on the internet.

The service you use for deployment depends on the type of app you're deploying.

I recommend Heroku for Rails and Node.js apps , Netlify for React apps built with Gatsby , and Vercel for React apps built with Next.js. All these services integrate with Git/Github so code changes trigger deployments that update your live site.

Services like AWS or Digital Ocean can also be used and give you more control over the server. However, I highly recommend going with one of the above services because they reduce a lot of unnecessary work and will save you a ton of time.

When you start building apps for the web, you learn there are bots, scripts, and people constantly attacking or spamming your site.

We'll look at some basics of web application security and what the heck is OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project).

The frameworks we work in (Next.js, Rails) have some security built in and try to filter out dangerous requests. However, you always needs to keep security in mind when handling sensitive data.

Nobody likes a slow site.

Plus Google is starting to rank search results based on their performance metrics.

We'll look at how to use Lighthouse and PageSpeed Insights to check how fast your app is loading and how to identify bottlenecks.

We'll also discuss average response times for different frameworks, common causes for slowness, and how to scale your applications.

It's important to know how you're going to make money.

Do you want to work as an employee for a tech company?

Do you want to consult/freelance to have more control over your time?

Do you want to build an app and charge money for it?

We'll look at the pros/cons of different career paths and the steps to be successful in each. The process isn't immeditate, but if you put in the time and develop your skills, you'll be able to find work.