Web Development is a constant evolving area so you have to update your skills in every 1 year.
Top 5 skills which every web developer should have the knowledge of are:
- HTML & CSS - HTML Tutorial
- JavaScript - JavaScript basics
- jQuery - jQuery Tutorials
- Database - Divided into Relational & NoSQL. SQL SERVER is a famous Relational database by Mircrosoft. Oracle DB is also very famous. MongoDB is a famous NoSQL database.
- API - A means of sharing data in JSON format through HTTP protocol.
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1. Constantly learning and improving
In a fast moving industry like ours, staying on top of your game means you never stop learning. Technologies change just as fast as trends, and what’s common practice now might already be outdated in a few years. If you want to become a great web developer, you have to stay ahead of the curve. That means learning new technologies and programming languages and also keeping an eye on what customers want (and need) in order to stay satisfied.(website services in nagpur)
In a recent survey of over 2,000 Java developers, 53% admitted to being “technology sheep” that only adapt new things once they have been accepted by the industry as the standard. 44% described themselves as “early adopters” that already upgrade OSX versions before they are stable. It’s pretty clear which fraction is more likely to stay ahead of their competitors. And it’s not the 3% of so-called “immutables” that consider all change bad and “don’t have time for change” because they are “too busy doing real work”.(responsive website design company nagpur)
Another reason to keep learning is to stay ahead of your user base. Or, as author Rick Cook puts it: “Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning.”
2. Keeping up to date with the industry
To stay up to date with the industry, a great idea is to follow blogs like Smashing Magazine, Sitepoint, Hacker News and of course our very own blog (although it looks like you’re doing alright there already). Visiting expos and conferences is also a great idea since you can network and walk away with many new ideas and insights. A good personal goal would be to visit at least one tech conference each year to keep things fresh and step out of your daily routine. (best web design company in nagpur)
3. Being able to manage time and prioritize
Working in web development can be extremely stressful and chaotic at times. Projects keep stacking up and deadlines are always just around the corner. To stay efficient (and sane), it’s vital to manage your time as best as possible. This is something that many developers struggle with, simply because they never took a step back to improve their time management skills. Here are some quick actionable tips on how you can become more organized and avoid deadlines creeping up on you:
- Make a to-do list and prioritize to put the most urgent and important tasks on top. Sometimes, the other stuff will just have to wait.
- Check your list first thing every morning and make a quick plan for the day. Even though things won’t always go according to that plan, you will become much more efficient by having it in the first place.
- Set reminders for important tasks and project steps that you want to get finished at certain times during the day or week. Ignore everything else if needed to make sure you meet your own mini deadlines.
- Use the 80/20 rule and try to find daily activities that eat away too much of your time without producing enough results. You might be surprised at how much time you’re spending every day doing things that take way too long for what you get out in return.
- Communicate with your boss or clients as soon as possible if you feel like you won’t make a deadline. It’s not ideal, but it’s not the end of the world either. The sooner you let them know about it, the sooner they can prepare.
4. Understanding UX
One attribute of any truly great developer is that they not only have an excellent grasp of the technical side of their business but also of the design and client-oriented aspect. To develop great apps and software, you have to understand how your clients and customers will use the end product. Swiss computer scientist and programmer Niklaus Wirth put it this way: “Clearly, programming courses should teach methods of design and construction, and the selected examples should be such that a gradual development can be nicely demonstrated.”
Before you start working on a new project, take the time and really think about the design and how it will be used by consumers. Through this step, you will often develop ideas that can significantly improve the product design itself.
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1. Code: It’s the be-all without the up to date all.
You up-to-date be up to date code as a developer. This might appear like updated we’re stating the plain. However, there’s some people constructing websites nowadays without something up-to-date programmatic chops.
That being stated, you couldn't just depend upon your understanding of code these days. An awesome developer should update be pushing them to look the larger up to date updated. This means information how their team interacts with each different and the effect this has on the product they’re building.
moreover, a deeper understanding of the technology you are the use of will help you make use of the up-to-date you have and definitely enlarge the boundaries and capability of the belongings you’re working on.
2. Don’t get up-to-date relaxed – stay knowledgeable.
Maintaining up with technology is difficult. It’s changing at any such brief pace that staying on everything is probably updated not possible. So, here’s what we might advise.
Slim your cognizance. Come updated an expert in a pair particular regions of interest up to date goal your strengths and maximise up-to-date competencies as a programmer.
But, it’s still important up-to-date up to date take note of what’s happening inside the industry. Updated what’s popular and apprehend what’s changing. Examine tech blogs and comply with what's going on as it will give you an idea of upcoming shifts and developments up-to-date recognise users and the way they'll use the belongings you build.
In more simple terms, you don’t need up-to-date be roasting meat for a collection of up to date that has all just long past vegetarian. Developers want up to date updated adapt and construct up-to-date enterprise demands.
This doesn’t suggest constructing using your preferred new up-to-date era. It method building up to date the contemporary or upcoming demanding situations that you trust can be applicable up-to-date users.
3. Trying out
Don’t construct something if you’re not organised up to date ensure it works nicely. You need up to date be a fantastic problem solver up-to-date up to date at debugging code. We like updated think of it as paying near attention updated the little matters.
Some other important part of trying out is that from time updated it takes you outside the code. Be up to date updated problem clear up for issues that cope with usability and consumer experience.
4. Communication and social interaction are competencies.
The stereotype of a silent developer who best opens his or her “mouth for peanuts” perhaps be a previous concept at this up to date updated. We now stay in the age of changing knowledge: podcasts, vlogging, TEDtalks, and conferences.
all the more cause updated ensure you up to date talk and address human beings.
In any stroll of existence, you’re going up-to-date stumble upon human interaction – and growing is not any special. Learning up to date update communicate your thoughts and designs without a doubt and successfully is a critical talent that a developer wishes updated have.
5.educate your self and continually be hungry for greater.
As we mentioned earlier than, web improvement and technology is continually converting. New releases, versions, functions, updated, and so forth. – it could be difficult updated live on up to the date of it. This is why a superb developer up to date also be an exceptional self-learner.
Learning up to date learn is probably one of the maximum important abilities a developer will have. Being able updated speedy gather knowledge is critical in a quick-paced environment like web development. So, train yourself up to date examine and develop an ardour for learning greater.
6. up to date updated control a while.
If you may manage it slowly, you could control your initiatives. It’s as easy as that. A developer who uses excellent time control techniques is up to date supply tasks extra always than individuals who don’t.
Up to date updated multi-venture and up to date learnt how updated delegate obligations updated different sources if you have up-to-date. You have updated avoid bringing work home with you; this means that making sure which you make use of your time at paintings within the maximum green way possible.
7. A pho up updated is worth a thousand words.
An incredible developer up-to-date not simplest be up to date code, and speak nicely, but being up to date “white board” is also very accessible.
developers should update be up-to-date draw or group-to-datatype their intentions for more than one motives.
It’s the most inexpensive manner updated fail.
Generating a visual is the quickest and regularly, most concise, way updated get your thoughts throughout.
Allow’s be sincere, no quantity of documentation can replace a simple diagram!
It’s certainly really worth it up-to-date spend a while on honing your talents on the white board. Your sketches want updated suit what you’re up-to-date talk.
Running up-to-date white boarding abilities will help you on greater stages than one. Tremendous white boarders aren't only up-to-date produce clean up-to-date recognise diagrams, but they frequently excel in other areas up-to-date their strong conversation skills.
8. Be reckless, be lazy
- Michael Greer (ex-CTO of The Onion) offered this insightful, up-to-date Quora:
Laziness
Refuses up to date do whatever two times: writes a script or go for it.
Cowardice
Thinks up to date updated, issues over load and code effect
Recklessness
attempts new stuff constantly, launches identical-day ideas
Up to date time what we consider as bad features can surely be effective ones. Being “lazy” in this context means you find the quickest and most green manner of doing something updated keep away from spending up to date updated effort on a task.
- right here’s a few ways you may place that type of “laziness” up-to-date, correct use:
Don’t repeat your self.
Accumulate code snippets.
Use frameworks.
9. Experience what you do.
On occasion updated you’ll have lengthy days or a trouble that simply received leave. Don’t combat it, enjoy it.
Admire what you and your crew are up-to-date reap and it'll make your paintings that plenty sweeter. a part of being a developer that stands out from the gang recognises your really worth in the collective up-to-date of your job: you’re no longer an island.
if you include the task and the teamwork, you’ll locate that your task is lots more fun and worthwhile!
10. in no way forget about that you’re solving a problem.
Remember that an important part of programming is fixing a problem. The entirety which you create, construct, or code is supposed updated be an answer for some predicament. The generation you operate, or the language you choose shouldn’t distract from the main meat of the activity: trouble-fixing.
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5 Essential Skills every Web Developer Should Have
1. Constantly learning and improving
In a fast moving industry like ours, staying on top of your game means you never stop learning. Technologies change just as fast as trends, and what’s common practice now might already be outdated in a few years. If you want to become a great web developer, you have to stay ahead of the curve. That means learning new technologies and programming languages and also keeping an eye on what customers want (and need) in order to stay satisfied.
In a recent survey of over 2,000 Java developers, 53% admitted to being “technology sheep” that only adapt new things once they have been accepted by the industry as the standard. 44% described themselves as “early adopters” that already upgrade OSX versions before they are stable. It’s pretty clear which fraction is more likely to stay ahead of their competitors. And it’s not the 3% of so-called “immutables” that consider all change bad and “don’t have time for change” because they are “too busy doing real work”.
Another reason to keep learning is to stay ahead of your user base. Or, as author Rick Cook puts it: “Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning.”
2. Keeping up to date with the industry
To stay up to date with the industry, a great idea is to follow blogs like Smashing Magazine, Sitepoint, Hacker News and of course our very own blog (although it looks like you’re doing alright there already). Visiting expos and conferences is also a great idea since you can network and walk away with many new ideas and insights. A good personal goal would be to visit at least one tech conference each year to keep Web Development company up to date and step out of your daily routine. If you need some help deciding which shows to visit this year, check out our post about 16 conferences in 2017 that no developer wants to miss.
3. Being able to manage time and prioritize
Working in web development can be extremely stressful and chaotic at times. Projects keep stacking up and deadlines are always just around the corner. To stay efficient (and sane), it’s vital to manage your time as best as possible. This is something that many developers struggle with, simply because they never took a step back to improve their time management skills. Here are some quick actionable tips on how you can become more organized and avoid deadlines creeping up on you:
Make a to-do list and prioritize to put the most urgent and important tasks on top. Sometimes, the other stuff will just have to wait.
Check your list first thing every morning and make a quick plan for the day. Even though things won’t always go according to that plan, you will become much more efficient by having it in the first place.
Set reminders for important tasks and project steps that you want to get finished at certain times during the day or week. Ignore everything else if needed to make sure you meet your own mini deadlines.
Use the 80/20 rule and try to find daily activities that eat away too much of your time without producing enough results. You might be surprised at how much time you’re spending every day doing things that take way too long for what you get out in return.
Communicate with your boss or clients as soon as possible if you feel like you won’t make a deadline. It’s not ideal, but it’s not the end of the world either. The sooner you let them know about it, the sooner they can prepare.
4. Understanding UX
One attribute of any truly great developer is that they not only have an excellent grasp of the technical side of their business but also of the design and client-oriented aspect. To develop great apps and software, you have to understand how php developer satisfies clients and customers will use the end product. Swiss computer scientist and programmer Niklaus Wirth put it this way: “Clearly, programming courses should teach methods of design and construction, and the selected examples should be such that a gradual development can be nicely demonstrated.”
Before you start working on a new project, take the time and really think about the design and how it will be used by consumers. Through this step, you will often develop ideas that can significantly improve the product design itself.
Another important point is to stay up to date with design trends. The best way to do this is to spend some time every day reading articles on one of the countless amazing web design blogs out there. If you can’t find the time and just want a quick overview of what’s going on right now, just check out our top 10 web design trends for 2017.
5. Communicating well with others
Communication is important in every job, and perhaps even more so in web development. The needs of designers, developers, clients, and customers have to be perfectly aligned in order to create an outstanding product. This means that communication is a big part of every web developer’s job and should always be treated with a high sense of priority.
Amplifying the need for good communication skills is the fact that coding is something that is very hard to grasp for non-developers. You have to be able to make other people understand technical problems, which is something that can be pretty tough. As a way of improving your communication skills, a great idea is to have regular talks with people you know outside of the office and try to make them understand what you’re working on. Yes, chances are they will be bored, but that’s also the challenge here: if you can tell your friends about your new project without putting them to sleep, you can do the same with your next potential client. And you will greatly increase communication with your boss and your design team as well.
It really doesn’t matter how long you’ve been working as a web developer, there is always room for improvement. Sometimes all you need is some motivation to look at what you’re doing and make up your mind to improve something, and you can reap big benefits down the line. We hope you were able to get some inspiration from this post and that it helps you become a better developer.
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1. Security
This is the number one priority for any web developer, the capability to design websites that are not only functional, but are safe from the maliciousness that exists on the Internet. Competent web developers have a deep understanding of the security concerns involved with the Internet and knowledge of basic and advanced protection of the web sites they produce. Hackers are constantly refining their skills and thus, any web developer worth their weight must be constantly on guard and improving their defense talents.
2. Adaptability
The nuts and bolts involved in web design are not passed down from generation to generation. They are constantly evolving and great professionals stay on this cutting edge. Being a lifelong learner, adjusting from past mistakes, collaborating with other programmers and taking feedback constructively, not personally, are all needed to be malleable in an ever changing industry. Being a know it all or having an ego are the sure way to fail as a web designer. It is a humbling task that rarely works the first time. Be prepared to be resourceful, creative and determined to overcome obstacles. Have an expansive network of others in the industry that possesses different skills sets or experience. Sometimes knowing where to get an answer is just as important as knowing the answer itself.
3. Customer Driven
We all know the stereotype of the computer nerd in a dark basement talking to themselves about the uselessness of the uninformed while maniacally plotting world domination. Well, those guys don’t get business. Successful web designers are approachable, great communicators and listeners and make code for others, not themselves. They have empathy for their consumer, not contempt. The most important attribute of any website is usability, not how great the code is. Be the web designer that is easy to work with, flexible and reliable and they’ll be able to attract, retain and satisfy clients who will then recommend their services to others.
4. Passion
Web design is not necessarily a glamorous task; it is often tedious and frustrating. Therefore, having a love for this job is needed to thrive as a professional web designer. Though it doesn’t have to consume every waking moment, but if one doesn’t dream of code at least a couple times per week or sit up in bed suddenly with a new idea every once in a while, web design may not be a smart choice. Motivation to learn, solve problems and push your abilities to the limits on a daily basis is essential for success in any profession. It will push a web designer through the bumps in the road, the bad days and rough weeks and keep coming back for another late night session.
5. Knowledge
Some may place this first, as it could be considered the entry point to being a web designer, but without any of the above skills, all the knowledge in the world may not necessarily lead to success. Not to say competency of a variety of coding platforms and strategies isn’t essential, it is. Obviously an effective web developer must be able to write syntactically valid HTML, CSS and JavaScript. They must know how to test their code as anyone willing to write code must be willing to check its validity. This testing must also occur on multiple browsers, not just the programmer’s favorite, as again, the most important aspect of any web developer’s product is usability. Again, knowledge of technical skills is significant to any web developer, but they only get one in the door. What they do with those skills is what separates the successful designers from those wishing they were.
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Pulse on the Industry and the User
It's impossible to know where web development will go in 5 years, but those who follow standards bodies or at least read tech blogs have a much better understanding of upcoming changes and growing trends.
It's not enough to follow the industry. Web developers must also understand their users and how they use the product. Analytics tools like StatCounter and Google Analytics are my favorites for gathering basic metrics of user interactions. A web developer should know if a third of the traffic is from a mobile device or that visitors are from Spanish-speaking countries. Maybe it's time to think about optimizing for mobile and internationalization.
I list this as the number one skill because being proficient here will trickle down and facilitate the other skills.
Things are changing and a lot has already changed. HTML 5, CSS 3, ECMAScript 5, and so on. If you can see these things coming, you will be able to adjust your priorities.
Developers must have an understanding of the state of the browser market and to some extent even the OS market. Did you know users of Windows XP are unable to upgrade to IE 9? Want to guess what the most popular operating system is? (hint: it's XP). Knowing this, do you think it's a good idea to drop support of IE 8, even though 9 is out? Maybe for your user base, that could be a good idea. But my point is that you should know where all of the pieces are on the board before you make your move.
Programming Competency
Web developers must be able to code. This is supposed to sound obvious. An effective web developer must be able to write syntactically valid HTML, CSS, and even JavaScript.
Testing
All web developers must be able to test their code in multiple browsers. It's easy to test for our own personal browser of choice and ignore the rest, but the web is about diversity and the browser landscape is very diverse.
JavaScript testing also falls under this category. Developers must use tools to detect and debug scripting errors. Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer all come with built-in developer tools that allow you to step through JavaScript and execute code in an interactive console. Firefox has limited native support for this, but the Firebug plugin is the de facto standard.
If you are going to write code, you must be prepared to make sure that it works.
Accessibility
Developers must be able to write code that is flexible enough to be used in different ways. Search engines and screen readers for the blind are two examples of machines interpreting your code. Sites that are heavy with Flash or foreground images for UI tend to struggle here.
Accessibility at it's core is really about usability. Can the user use your product? Web developers must know about any obstacles between the user and the product to better design it. Is the product usable on small screens like mobile devices or even older monitors? Do users know to click on a particular button to continue to the next page or is the page difficult to understand?
How about users with images, cookies, or JavaScript disabled? What if they're just using a really old version of a browser? What do you do for them?
Know your user, set limits to what you will and will not support, implement a cross-compatible solution, and test thoroughly.
Security
I leave security for last, but really it's a top priority. Every web developer must understand how malicious people can use their product to attack the site or other even other users.
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Essential skills every Web Developer should have
The idea here is that most of us should already know most of what is on this list. But there just might be one or two items you haven’t really looked into before, don’t fully understand, or maybe never even heard of.
Interface and User Experience
- Be aware that browsers implement standards inconsistently and make sure your site works reasonably well across all major browsers. At a minimum test against a recent Gecko engine (Firefox), a WebKit engine (Safari and some mobile browsers), Chrome, your supported IE browsers (take advantage of the Application Compatibility VPC Images), and Opera. Also consider how browsers render your sitein different operating systems.
- Consider how people might use the site other than from the major browsers: cell phones, screen readers and search engines, for example. — Some accessibility info: WAI and Section508, Mobile development: MobiForge.
- Staging: How to deploy updates without affecting your users. Have one or more test or staging environments available to implement changes to architecture, code or sweeping content and ensure that they can be deployed in a controlled way without breaking anything. Have an automated way of then deploying approved changes to the live site. This is most effectively implemented in conjunction with the use of a version control system (CVS, Subversion, etc.) and an automated build mechanism (Ant, NAnt, etc.).
- Don’t display unfriendly errors directly to the user.
- Don’t put users’ email addresses in plain text as they will get spammed to death.
- Add the attribute rel="nofollow" to user-generated links to avoid spam.
- Build well-considered limits into your site – This also belongs under Security.
- Learn how to do progressive enhancement.
- Redirect after a POST if that POST was successful, to prevent a refresh from submitting again.
- Don’t forget to take accessibility into account. It’s always a good idea and in certain circumstances it’s a legal requirement. WAI-ARIAand WCAG 2 are good resources in this area.
- Don’t make me think
Security
- It’s a lot to digest but the OWASP development guide covers Web Site security from top to bottom.
- Know about Injection especially SQL injection and how to prevent it.
- Never trust user input, nor anything else that comes in the request (which includes cookies and hidden form field values!).
- Hash passwords using salt and use different salts for your rows to prevent rainbow attacks. Use a slow hashing algorithm, such as bcrypt (time tested) or scrypt (even stronger, but newer) (1, 2), for storing passwords. (How To Safely Store A Password). The NIST also approves of PBKDF2 to hash passwords", and it’s FIPS approved in .NET(more info here). Avoid using MD5 or SHA family directly.
- Don’t try to come up with your own fancy authentication system. It’s such an easy thing to get wrong in subtle and untestable ways and you wouldn’t even know it until after you’re hacked.
- Know the rules for processing credit cards. (See this question as well)
- Use SSL/HTTPS for login and any pages where sensitive data is entered (like credit card info).
- Prevent session hijacking.
- Avoid cross site scripting (XSS).
- Avoid cross site request forgeries (CSRF).
- Avoid Clickjacking.
- Keep your system(s) up to date with the latest patches.
- Make sure your database connection information is secured.
- Keep yourself informed about the latest attack techniques and vulnerabilities affecting your platform.
- Read The Google Browser Security Handbook.
- Read The Web Application Hacker’s Handbook.
- Consider The principle of least privilege. Try to run your app server as non-root. (tomcat example)
Performance
- Implement caching if necessary, understand and use HTTP cachingproperly as well as HTML5 Manifest.
- Optimize images – don’t use a 20 KB image for a repeating background.
- Learn how to gzip/deflate content (deflate is better).
- Combine/concatenate multiple stylesheets or multiple script files to reduce number of browser connections and improve gzip ability to compress duplications between files.
- Take a look at the Yahoo Exceptional Performance site, lots of great guidelines, including improving front-end performance and their YSlow tool (requires Firefox, Safari, Chrome or Opera). Also, Google page speed (use with browser extension) is another tool for performance profiling, and it optimizes your images too.
- Use CSS Image Sprites for small related images like toolbars (see the "minimize HTTP requests" point)
- Busy web sites should consider splitting components across domains. Specifically…
- Static content (i.e. images, CSS, JavaScript, and generally content that doesn’t need access to cookies) should go in a separate domain that does not use cookies, because all cookies for a domain and its subdomains are sent with every request to the domain and its subdomains. One good option here is to use a Content Delivery Network (CDN), but consider the case where that CDN may fail by including alternative CDNs, or local copies that can be served instead.
- Minimize the total number of HTTP requests required for a browser to render the page.
- Utilize Google Closure Compiler for JavaScript and other minification tools.
- Make sure there’s a favicon.ico file in the root of the site, i.e. /favicon.ico. Browsers will automatically request it, even if the icon isn’t mentioned in the HTML at all. If you don’t have a /favicon.ico, this will result in a lot of 404s, draining your server’s bandwidth.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
- Use "search engine friendly" URLs, i.e. use Page on example.cominstead of Example Domain/index.php?page=45
- When using # for dynamic content change the # to #! and then on the server $_REQUEST["_escaped_fragment_"] is what googlebot uses instead of #!. In other words, ./#!page=1 becomes ./?_escaped_fragments_=page=1. Also, for users that may be using FF.b4 or Chromium, history.pushState({"foo":"bar"}, "About", "./?page=1"); Is a great command. So even though the address bar has changed the page does not reload. This allows you to use ? instead of #! to keep dynamic content and also tell the server when you email the link that we are after this page, and the AJAX does not need to make another extra request.
- Don’t use links that say "click here". You’re wasting an SEO opportunity and it makes things harder for people with screen readers.
- Have an XML sitemap, preferably in the default location /sitemap.xml.
- Use <link rel="canonical" ... /> when you have multiple URLs that point to the same content, this issue can also be addressed from Google Webmaster Tools.
- Use Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools.
- Install Google Analytics right at the start (or an open source analysis tool like Piwik).
- Know how robots.txt and search engine spiders work.
- Redirect requests (using 301 Moved Permanently) asking for Example Domain to Example Domain(or the other way round) to prevent splitting the google ranking between both sites.
- Know that there can be badly-behaved spiders out there.
- If you have non-text content look into Google’s sitemap extensions for video etc. There is some good information about this in Tim Farley’s answer.
Technology
- Understand HTTP and things like GET, POST, sessions, cookies, and what it means to be "stateless".
- Write your XHTML/HTML and CSS according to the W3C specifications and make sure theyvalidate. The goal here is to avoid browser quirks modes and as a bonus make it much easier to work with non-traditional browsers like screen readers and mobile devices.
- Understand how JavaScript is processed in the browser.
- Understand how JavaScript, style sheets, and other resources used by your page are loaded and consider their impact on perceived performance. It is now widely regarded as appropriate tomove scripts to the bottom of your pages with exceptions typically being things like analytics apps or HTML5 shims.
- Understand how the JavaScript sandbox works, especially if you intend to use iframes.
- Be aware that JavaScript can and will be disabled, and that AJAX is therefore an extension, not a baseline. Even if most normal users leave it on now, remember that NoScript is becoming more popular, mobile devices may not work as expected, and Google won’t run most of your JavaScript when indexing the site.
- Learn the difference between 301 and 302 redirects (this is also an SEO issue).
- Learn as much as you possibly can about your deployment platform.
- Consider using a Reset Style Sheet or normalize.css.
- Consider JavaScript frameworks (such as jQuery, MooTools, Prototype, Dojo or YUI 3), which will hide a lot of the browser differences when using JavaScript for DOM manipulation.
- Taking perceived performance and JS frameworks together, consider using a service such as theGoogle Libraries API to load frameworks so that a browser can use a copy of the framework it has already cached rather than downloading a duplicate copy from your site.
- Don’t reinvent the wheel. Before doing ANYTHING search for a component or example on how to do it. There is a 99% chance that someone has done it and released an OSS version of the code.
- On the flipside of that, don’t start with 20 libraries before you’ve even decided what your needs are. Particularly on the client-side web where it’s almost always ultimately more important to keep things lightweight, fast, and flexible.
Bug fixing
- Understand you’ll spend 20% of your time coding and 80% of it maintaining, so code accordingly.
- Set up a good error reporting solution.
- Have a system for people to contact you with suggestions and criticisms.
- Document how the application works for future support staff and people performing maintenance.
- Make frequent backups! (And make sure those backups are functional) Have a restore strategy, not just a backup strategy.
- Use a version control system to store your files, such as Subversion, Mercurial or Git.
- Don’t forget to do your Acceptance Testing. Frameworks like Selenium can help. Especially if you fully automate your testing, perhaps by using a Continuous Integration tool, such as Jenkins.
- Make sure you have sufficient logging in place using frameworks such as log4j, log4net or log4r. If something goes wrong on your live site, you’ll need a way of finding out what.
- When logging make sure you capture both handled exceptions, and unhandled exceptions. Report/analyse the log output, as it’ll show you where the key issues are in your site.
Other
- Implement both server-side and client-side monitoring and analytics (one should be proactive rather than reactive).
- Use services like UserVoice and Intercom (or any other similar tools) to constantly keep in touch with your users.
- Follow Vincent Driessen‘s Git branching model
Lots of stuff omitted not necessarily because they’re not useful answers, but because they’re either too detailed, out of scope, or go a bit too far for someone looking to get an overview of the things they should know. Please feel free to edit this as well, I probably missed some stuff or made some mistakes.
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Web development New Orleans continues to be one of the hottest industries around, and it’s not about to change anytime soon. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of web developers is projected to grow 27 percent from 2014 to 2024, which is much faster than the average for all occupations.
With that in mind, we thought we’d put together a list of essential skills that every web developer should have. Knowing what to improve is the starting point to achieving greatness, so we hope you find some useful information in this post.
1. Constantly learning and improving
In a fast moving industry like ours, staying on top of your game means you never stop learning. Technologies change just as fast as trends, and what’s common practice now might already be outdated in a few years. If you want to become a great web developer, you have to stay ahead of the curve. That means learning new technologies and programming languages and also keeping an eye on what customers want (and need) in order to stay satisfied.
In a recent survey of over 2,000 Java developers, 53% admitted to being “technology sheep” that only adapt new things once they have been accepted by the industry as the standard. 44% described themselves as “early adopters” that already upgrade OSX versions before they are stable. It’s pretty clear which fraction is more likely to stay ahead of their competitors. And it’s not the 3% of so-called “immutables” that consider all change bad and “don’t have time for change” because they are “too busy doing real work”.
Another reason to keep learning is to stay ahead of your user base. Or, as author Rick Cook puts it: “Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning.”
2. Keeping up to date with the industry
To stay up to date with the industry, a great idea is to follow blogs like Smashing Magazine, Sitepoint, Hacker News and of courses (although it looks like you’re doing alright there already). Visiting expos and conferences is also a great idea since you can network and walk away with many new ideas and insights. A good personal goal would be to visit at least one tech conference each year to keep things fresh and step out of your daily routine.
3. Being able to manage time and prioritize
Working in web development can be extremely stressful and chaotic at times. Projects keep stacking up and deadlines are always just around the corner. To stay efficient (and sane), it’s vital to manage your time as best as possible. This is something that many developers struggle with, simply because they never took a step back to improve their time management skills. Here are some quick actionable tips on how you can become more organized and avoid deadlines creeping up on you:
- Make a to-do list and prioritize to put the most urgent and important tasks on top. Sometimes, the other stuff will just have to wait.
- Check your list first thing every morning and make a quick plan for the day. Even though things won’t always go according to that plan, you will become much more efficient by having it in the first place.
- Set reminders for important tasks and project steps that you want to get finished at certain times during the day or week. Ignore everything else if needed to make sure you meet your own mini deadlines.
- Use the 80/20 rule and try to find daily activities that eat away too much of your time without producing enough results. You might be surprised at how much time you’re spending every day doing things that take way too long for what you get out in return.
- Communicate with your boss or clients as soon as possible if you feel like you won’t make a deadline. It’s not ideal, but it’s not the end of the world either. The sooner you let them know about it, the sooner they can prepare.
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All Answers Based on Quora.com
