10 Steps to Becoming a Great Web Developer

For those of us who are already web developers it may seem obvious but when you just getting started and don’t know what to do, it is nice to have guide where to start.

1. Learn HTML

HTML or Hyper Text Markup Language is the markup language for web pages, it is the heart of web pages, so this is what you should aim first. HTML is easy to learn, but it is also easy to misuse them. Learn it right, and you’ll get one of your fundamental as web developer.
Resources

• HTML Dog
• Getting started with HTML
• HTML W3C school tutorial

2. Learn server side scripting

Learning server side scripting is fundamental for web developer, pick one of server side scripting language and try to master it. Here some of your choices :

• PHP
• Python
• Ruby

3. Learn SQL

Building dynamic web pages will get you to learn about database. While there are so many database engine, most of them understand SQL language. If you want to speak with your database then learn this language.

Resources

• SQL W3C school tutorials
• MySQL Homepage
• Wikipedia on SQL

4. Learn CSS

When it come to presentation of your web pages, use stylesheet. This is where CSS will help you. So put some of your time to learn this stuff.
Resources

• HTML Dog
• CSS Zen Garden

5. Learn Javascript

While most of today web programmer love jQuery, learning basic syntax and how to program in javascript will give you more skill in the long run.
Resources

• Javascript tutorial on Webmonkey.com
• Javascript W3C school tutorial

6. Learn regular expression

While it is not as important as the others, but knowing about regular expression, and how to use it will definitely save you a lot of time. From validation to highlight words, you can do it easy enough in regular expression.

7. Get yourself basic knowledge of UNIX/Linux

It is optional, but knowing some of basic linux command won’t hurt you. Maybe you don’t know, but most of web server is running on unix/linux platform. If I were you, I’ll get started learning this basic command.

8. Knowing web server

You don’t need to be a master on this part, but it is really nice to know about basic apache configuration, .htaccess tricks. Learning one or two about apache web server won’t waste your time.

9. Get a hand on version control

Learning on how to use version control is one good thing to do. You’ll thank to for yourself for learning this.

10. Learn web framework

After get your hand on HTML, server side scripting language, css, javascript, then it’d be better to choose a web framework to speed up your development. Using framework can save you time. If you’re into PHP, you can go with CakePHP, CodeIgniter, Zend, and many more. Python lovers can go with Django, webpy, RoR for Ruby programmers.