My Journey to become Frontend Developer

My journey began in my last 3 years of high school, studying Pascal, Visual Basic, MySQL, a bit of Java, and some other hardware-related stuff, it wasn’t until the last year that I learn a little bit of PHP and Javascript(NodeJS), but not too much just context to know that those things exist, unfortunately, I didn’t take advantage of that opportunity to learn about modern web development, nowadays I understand the value of those classes.

A couple of years after high school I discover Platzi, and decided to pay the yearly subscription and started learning web development. I begin with a lot of ideas, thinking about learning WordPress, PHP, and web fundamentals, but with no idea about what I really need to learn and in which order. I started studying HTML, CSS, and basics of javascript(just basics), I have to say that I didn’t go deep on fundamentals which is a huge mistake(later I’ll be explaining what I think were my mistakes on my journey), then I jump on PHP, but back then the basic course of PHP at Platzi was kind of hard to understand for a beginner, so I was so hard to understand some concepts that nowadays I think that are so simple.

In those days I thought that I liked Backend and PHP, so I keep learning PHP, then WordPress to create a few websites with things like Theme builders and Visual editors(those tools aren’t bad or anything like that, it’s just I needed to go deep on programming), then I was looking for a way to create apps with PHP in an easier way, so I discover Laravel and to be honest it was one of the greatest feelings that I had in my developer experience because I just know the complexity of making a PHP app from scratch with some third party packages, but Laravel makes everything so easy and intuitive that I was surprised about it.

Suddenly I realized that I´ve watched a lot of courses, but because of lack of practice I didn’t know anything really valuable in order to build a website due my lack in fundamentals, so I decided to stop learning PHP and get back to HTML, CSS, Git, and Javascript, HTML, CSS, and Git was kind of easy to review, but when I get to Javascript I noticed that I just know some basic stuff, so I learned things like asynchronism, clojure, scope, ES6+, hoisting, dom manipulation, V8 engine, NodeJS, NPM, etc. Then I started thinking that I had a clear path to becoming a good Web Developer.

Then I discovered that learning JS Frameworks(React, Vue.js, and Angular) is a good next step for a Web developer, at this time I forgot learning PHP, Laravel, and WordPress, at this time by a friend of mine recommendation I choose Vue.js. When I knew the potential of that framework I felt like when I discovered Laravel, so I spend so many hours learning Vue and building side projects for learning purposes.

The previous story summarises my journey learning Frontend before getting my first job, which was at Habitat Web as a Web developer working mostly working with PHP, WordPress, and Vue.js. Now I would like to share my personal suggestions in order to be more effective to become a Frontend Developer.

• Learn how do internet and the Browser work.
• Focus on Web Fundamentals HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
• Take your time to build a clear path in order to get a job or to be able to build a professional website.
• Pick a set of abilities and focus on them, if you learn something outside that set is cool, but always remember the set you pick.
• Look at the job marketplace in order to get desired skills for getting a job.

Here is a cool website where you can find a good roadmap for building your own path, however, I suggest you to fit it to your likes and personal case.