Roadmap to Become a Web Developer in 2022

Web Developer/ Full Stack Web Developer – How do you feel when you tag yourself with such titles? A long journey takes place to be called by such names. In the beginning, you might feel bored or terrified, but, trust me, this is the most popular and interesting field one should work on. You can also become a web developer provided you know why you want to learn it. According to a study, there are approximately 23 million software developers worldwide and the population growth is going to increase day by day. Now if you don’t know about web development, no worries! All your doubts will get cleared here. 

Who’s a web developer? Those websites which you scroll to are created by none other than web developers. A person who creates amazing websites for businesses and startups. A full-stack web developer looks after both the front-end and the back-end parts. The front-end deals with how the websites look when delivered to the customers while the back-end stores and processes all the data safely. 

Also, to bring to your notice, web developers are highly paid professionals. Most Software Developers work as Web Developers. MNCs also hire professionals/freshers based on their interest in web development. No matter what the situation would be web developers will always be in demand and for this, you don’t have to care whether it’s WFH (Work From Home) or WFO (Work From Office). This job requires dedication, patience, and eagerness to learn every day and play with technology. From Big MNCs to startups, everyone needs web developers to see growth in their business. But before we start this journey, you all should have a clear idea of why do you want to be a web developer?

Find reasons for it! You should be eager and curious as well to dive deep into it to become a successful web developer. 

In this blog, we will discuss the Web Development Roadmap 2022. Let’s begin!! Here’s a step-by-step process:

1. Choose a technology on which you want to work
2. Frontend Development
3. Backend Development
4. Database
5. Version Control System
6. Build Projects

1. Choose a Technology

A full-stack development comprises front-end, back-end, and database management. Choosing a technology on which you want to work depends on individuals, requirements, and applications. Few technologies on which you can work and are trending:

A. MERN – The most popular and trending technology.

• MongoDB – A NoSQL database that deals with data.
• Express – A framework for NodeJS and handles GET, PUT, POST, DELETE functions.
• React – A JavaScript library for building User Interfaces, building single-page applications.
• NodeJS – An open-source server environment.

B. MEAN – The major difference between MERN and MEAN is MERN (written in JavaScript) works on React whereas MEAN deals with Angular (a framework written in TypeScript). 

2. Frontend Development

Front-End is the UI (User Interface), it deals with the website’s overall appearance, on how interactive and dynamic it is. For mastering it, get clear with all the elements of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

• HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) – Start with the basic application of HTML by creating a small website that includes all the elements. Play with tables, and forms, and try adding images and links to the website to make it more eye-catching which in return makes your work efficient. 
   
• CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) – If you’re a person who loves creativity, you must go through CSS. Using CSS, you can add colors to your website, give borders to the headings or paragraphs, build the navigation bar, play with the icons, font, and text, and many more things like that. Make the website responsive i.e., how it looks on different screen sizes. The most popular CSS framework used is Bootstrap.
   
• JavaScript – This is the programming language of the web. Learn about DOM (Document Object Model), and API (Application Program Interface) properly.
   
• Frameworks – It is a platform for building software applications. It includes programs, code libraries, and compilers which when brought together enable the development of a project or system. These frameworks make components reusable. Examples of frameworks are – React, Angular, Vue, etc. 

3. Backend Development

The code that runs on the server, has logic to send the appropriate data from the client and receive it from the server. Also, it includes the database which stores all of the data of the application. It consists of three parts: a server, an application, and a database. Here, the code written by developers transfers information from the database to the browser. Code written by back-end developers communicates information from the database to the browser.

Skills you need to have to back-end developer: programming languages, frameworks, databases, servers, and API (Application Program Interface).

• Programming Languages – Back-end developers should know at least one of the programming languages like Java, Python, and JavaScript. JavaScript would be the best choice as this can be used in both the front-end and back-end.
   
• Frameworks – Frameworks are generally components or functions that are implemented to improve the performance of development. It includes the library of tools and modules that builds the architecture of a website. Several popular back-end frameworks are Express, Django, Ruby on Rails, etc.
   
• Database – Various DBMS technology should be known such as MongoDB, MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, etc. It handles with storage and management of data.
   
• Server – A system providing data, services, or programs is known as clients over a network. They share (send and receive) the data/information between client and server.
   
• API (Application Program Interface) – It is a set of defined rules that enables communication or acts as an intermediary between two applications. Request from the user is completed by the response from the server.

Client-Server Architecture: This architecture is designed to understand the request made and the response received. Whenever there’s a request from the client-side for data, the server responds to that request. There comes, the picture of a database which is explained in the next step, that stores the information needed to be retrieved.

4. Database

The database is a collection of data from which we can manage data (store and retrieve). There are two types of databases: relational (SQL) and non-relational (NoSQL). Some popular databases are: 

• MySQL – These are relational database management system, store and manages data.
• MongoDB – It is a NoSQL database; Finds key-value DB, graph DBs
• Volt DB – It follows a relational pattern, they use memory to store data.

5. Version Control

When certain libraries are added to each application, it gets updated in a period which in turn creates a new version of it. Using Git is a very good practice if you’re working on applications. Git is an open-source platform where the entire code exists from the initial time. It is secure, flexible, easy to edit, and restores the code. It has repositories where all files including the codebase are saved and one can make changes according to the requirement. Anyone can collaborate and make changes accordingly.

A list of Version Control Systems are: 

1. GitHub
2. GitLab
3. Beanstalk
4. Apache Subversion
5. Mercurial

Benefits of Version Control:

• It helps you maintain code.
• You can re-use it whenever needed.
• Saves the changes made.
• Provides evidence of all changes made.
• Improves performance of the web development.
• Collaborate and contribute.

Also, you should have good knowledge of HTTP/HTTPS, Linux commands, and DSA (Data Structures and Algorithms).

6. Build Projects

When you’re all done with the theory part, do build some projects to be well-versed with full-stack development. You implement all the front-end, and back-end sides of a project along with database handling, then you get perfect in web development. As you build something, you get familiar with the technical concepts like how APIs connect the front-end to the back-end, how the database manages data, and various other steps followed during web development. Thus, cultivate a habit of building projects to become a successful web developer.

Difference between UI (User Interface) and UX (User’s Experience)

1. User Interface (UI)

It deals with how the users interact with the product/service. With a click of a button, the page should respond. The collection of framing of each element with which a user interacts with the web page is known as User Interface. It works on the overall appearance and responsiveness of the website. 

Skills required as a UI designer:

1. Design principles
2. Style guides
3. Teamwork and communication skills

All the elements should be consistent and focus on the visual experience of a website. Responsibilities of a UI designer are – creating a visualization of screens, presenting ideas and design solutions, and maintaining documentation of style guidelines. 

2. User Experience (UX)

It deals with the user’s experience with the product/service. From the initial point to the endpoint, it works on the friendliness of the website. Better the architecture and research of the website better are the UX. 

Skills required as a UX designer: 

1. Problem Solving
2. Curiosity
3. Understand audience mindset

It adds a connection between users and the business. Creating a wireframe (structural level design of a website) is a task for UX designers. The responsibilities of UX designers are researching, designing, innovating, and prototyping for a better user experience. 

Start with the theory first then move to the practical implementation part. Web Developers will always be in demand no matter whether you work from anywhere. It is and will always be the best choice for tech-career growth. Go for it and be a fantastic web developer.

                                               Thankyou For Reading

Speed up navigations in React with Quick link

Prefetching is a technique to speed up navigations by downloading the resources for the next page, ahead of time. Quicklink is a library that allows you to implement this technique at scale, by automatically prefetching links as they come into the view.

In multi-page apps the library prefetches documents (e.g. /article.html), for in-viewport links, so that when the user clicks on these links they can be picked up from the HTTP cache.

Single-page apps commonly use a technique called route-based code splitting. This allows the site to load the code for a given route only when the user navigates to it. These files (JS, CSS) are commonly referred to as "chunks".

With that said, in these sites, instead of prefetching documents the biggest performance gains come from prefetching these chunks before the page needs them.

Achieving this presents some challenges:

• It's not trivial to determine which chunks (e.g. article.chunk.js) are associated with a given route (e.g. /article) before landing on it.
• The final URL names of these chunks can't be predicted, as modern module bundlers typically use long-term hashing for versioning (e.g. article.chunk.46e51.js).

This guide explains how Quicklink solves these challenges and allows you to achieve prefetching at scale in React single page apps.

Determine chunks associated with each route #

One of the core components of quicklink is webpack-route-manifest, a webpack plugin that lets you generate a JSON dictionary of routes and chunks. This allows the library to know which files are going to be needed by each route of the application and prefetch them as the routes come into the view.

After integrating the plugin with the project, it will produce a JSON manifest file associating each route with its corresponding chunks:

{
  '/about': [
    {
      type: 'style',
      href: '/static/css/about.f6fd7d80.chunk.css',
    },
    {
      type: 'script',
      href: '/static/js/about.1cdfef3b.chunk.js',
    },
  ],
  '/blog': [
    {
      type: 'style',
      href: '/static/css/blog.85e80e75.chunk.css',
    },
    {
      type: 'script',
      href: '/static/js/blog.35421503.chunk.js',
    },
  ],
}

This manifest file can be requested in two ways:

• By URL, e.g. https://site_url/rmanifest.json.
• Through the window object, at window.__rmanifest.

Prefetch chunks for in-viewport routes #

Once the manifest file is available, the next step is to install Quicklink by running npm install quicklink.

Then, the higher order component (HOC) withQuicklink() can be used to indicate that a given route should be prefetched when the link comes into the view.

The following code belongs to an App component of a React app that renders a top menu with four links:

const App = () => (
  <div className={style.app}>
    <Hero />
    <main className={style.wrapper}>
      <Suspense fallback={<div>Loading…</div>}>
        <Route path="/" exact component={Home} />
        <Route path="/blog" exact component={Blog} />
        <Route path="/blog/:title" component={Article} />
        <Route path="/about" exact component={About} />
      </Suspense>
    </main>
    <Footer />
  </div>
);

To tell Quicklink that these routes should be prefetched as they come into the view:

1. Import the quicklink HOC at the beginning of the component.
2. Wrap each route with the withQuicklink() HOC, passing the page component and options parameter to it.

const options = {
  origins: [],
};
const App = () => (
  <div className={style.app}>
    <Hero />
    <main className={style.wrapper}>
      <Suspense fallback={<div>Loading…</div>}>
        <Route path="/" exact component={withQuicklink(Home, options)} />
        <Route path="/blog" exact component={withQuicklink(Blog, options)} />
        <Route
          path="/blog/:title"
          component={withQuicklink(Article, options)}
        />
        <Route path="/about" exact component={withQuicklink(About, options)} />
      </Suspense>
    </main>
    <Footer />
  </div>
);

The withQuicklink() HOC uses the path of the route as a key to obtain its associated chunks from rmanifest.json. Under the hood, as links come into the view, the library injects a <link rel="prefetch"> tag in the page for each chunk so they can be prefetched. Prefetched resources will be requested at the lowest priority by the browser and kept in the HTTP Cache for 5 minutes, after which point, the cache-control rules of the resource apply. As a result of this, when a user clicks on a link and moves to a given route, the chunks will be retrieved from the cache, greatly improving the time it takes to render that route.

Conclusion 

Prefetching can greatly improve load times for future navigations. In React single-page apps, this can be achieved by loading the chunks associated with each route, before the user lands in them. Quick link's solution for React SPA uses webpack-route-manifest to create a map of routes and chunks, in order to determine which files to prefetch, when a link comes into the view. Implementing this technique throughout your site can greatly improve navigations to the point of making them appear instant.

                                                Thankyou for reading