My Advice for a New Developer

23rd May 2024

Suggestions for learning how to be a new frontend developer

Recently, I was asked if I had some time to help mentor a budding developer. I’m a frontend developer so my advice will be skewed toward frontend development: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Here’s some advice I had:

Get a Mac

I know this can be controversial and I understand that Macs tend to not be cheap. I recommend a Mac because some things are built-in and reduce friction when trying to learn. It’s been a while since I’ve worked side-by-side with a newer developer who was using a PC but from my experience, these were some of the things that were more difficult when a PC was used:

What is the equivalent of the Mac’s command key on a PC? Seems small but it has caused unneeded frustration that wouldn’t have happened if we were both on Macs.
Command line. I can’t remember if Windows Subsystem for Linux resolved this but I remember having to jump through some hoops to get started with the command line on a PC.
Git. Same as the reason above. Me: “How do you run Terminal commands on Windows?” Me: “I don’t know, I guess we better Google it 🙄”
That’s it? I’m sure there are more reasons, I’ll update this list as they come to me.

Don’t get too distracted by the cool thing

Something like “WordPress” doesn’t sound as modern and cool as React or Node but, if you see a lot of jobs looking for WordPress developers, don’t be afraid of taking a course or tutorial on WordPress, you might like it. BTW, According to this HubSpot blog post, 45% of all websites on the internet use WordPress.

Try different languages

This one is a little hard. I was fortunate enough to have a great instructor teach me how to be a frontend developer and lay a path out for me. How do you choose what language to base your career on? Maybe check your community and look at local meetup groups and see which languages have the most activity, you can also check job boards like Glassdoor and LinkedIn to see which languages have the most opportunities, lastly, find something you enjoy working with. It’s possible to dislike programming with one language and absolutely love programming in another.

GitHub - I’ve seen numerous job listings with GitHub/GitLab/BitBucket listed. It’s not always “required” but I’d consider it a very important skill and a good way to stand out.