The short answer is that web development is pretty challenging to learn. As an individual who has become a self-taught web developer and works in the industry, it is a ton of continuous hard work to be a great developer. That being said, if you want to become a web developer, it is definitely possible.
What makes web development so difficult is not necessarily understanding how to program, the current technologies used, computer science fundamentals, frontend/backend development, databases, or how computer networking works, but rather how they all fit together. It is a long and often confusing learning process that takes at least a few months to start grasping and a lifetime to master.
That being said if are coming from a computer science background. Web development is considered to be one of the easiest career paths in the industry.
This is usually referring to building basic websites and I don’t personally like this comparison as it is highly dependent on the project at hand. Building and scaling a website like google.com is incredibly difficult. Especially compared to building a small business website with a pre-made WordPress theme. They just aren’t comparable, even though both are under the field of web development.
Does Learning Web Development Get Easier?
If you stumbled across this article wondering if the effort you put into learning web development eventually makes the process easier, you can rest assured that it definitely will!
Just like learning any skill, the more effort and time you put into it, the easier and more fluent that skill will become. It just takes practice.
I can recall my very early days of learning JavaScript, my first language, and how hard every concept seemed. I am not ashamed to admit (maybe a little ashamed), that I had a hard time grasping the difference between a return statement and a console.log. Two entirely different concepts!
Now I know a plethora of different languages, even going as far as creating my own! I have built APIs, complex frontends with state management, web scrapers, automated scripts to make daily tasks easier and so much more.
This article isn’t about me boasting about being a great developer, I have a lot more to learn and I am excited about where the future will take me.
However, I wanted to write this post to let people know that I too, at one point, had no idea why functions, loops, and conditionals were quite as important as they are and how all the pieces fit together. After the process of continuous learning, I now feel confident I could build anything on the web with enough time and resources.
So, How Hard Exacty Is Web Development Then?
Well, this depends entirely on your starting position. The more you know about computer science and web development, the easier web development becomes.
If you already have an undergraduate degree in Computer Science or a related degree, it should be relatively easy.
However, there will definitely still be a lot to learn. Web development changes fast and there are always new technologies to keep up with. You should see a lot of cross-over from other fields and your classwork though.
If you are a complete beginner like I was, learning web development will be pretty challenging. However, with enough time and practice, it will eventually become much, much easier.
Wrapping Up
So the moral of the story? Web development takes time to master. If you are struggling with your goal to become a web developer, keep pushing! Eventually, you will look back and laugh at the problems you used to find challenging.
If you want a complete list of skills you should know to be a web developer, check out this resource.
If you want to check out some online platforms to teach you the core data structures and algorithms you need to be a developer, check out my Codewars review and HackerRank review.
Good luck and happy coding!
