New Horizons: My First Steps Into The World Of Web Development

Over the past few years, I have been steadily writing down interesting and prospective project ideas. Each time, the idea hits me like a lightning flash.

In the beginning, I made the mistake of thinking that I would write the idea down later. To my horror, after an hour or so, I completely forgot about it. Having learnt my lesson, I started jotting them down.

While most ideas languish in my notes application, I have indeed been able to attempt a few. Most of these attempts failed, of course. But some of them did not. One such successfully-implemented idea is my blog. If you are reading this, then it is all thanks to this idea of mine.

Running a blog is no easy task. However, it is still a relatively simple idea: you write about what you value and share it with the (internet) world. If people like your work or gain value from it, they would choose to read it. It is indeed simple.

Not all of the ideas in my notes application are simple though. Some of them are very technical and require sharp problem-solving skills. This is the kind of challenge that stimulates me and motivates me.

There was just one factor stopping me from acting on these project ideas: the ability to write web software. In modern times, people call software ‘application’, or ‘app’ for short. I still like the term ‘software’ better than ‘app’; I find the term ‘app’ derogatory for some reason.

After miserably tolerating my lack of software development skills for a couple of years, I finally decided to take the challenge head on.

I have been doing everything I can and could do to learn the ropes of web development in as short a time as possible. In this essay, I share my experience and results so far. Let us begin.

This essay is supported by Generatebg

What is My Current Level?

I do not want to give you the impression that I have now magically become a web development expert. I am just a beginner. But I am a proud one at that. Why?

Well, I have been steadily building baby projects to learn the ins and outs of the trade. I started out by making simple CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Destroy/Delete) applications.

From thereon, I slowly started adding more functionality to my projects. My most recent one is a (deployed) web software that implements user authentication, authorisation, basic security defence, geocoding, etc.

It’s not much, but this is a level that makes me happy. Unlike earlier, I am now able to start building stuff without much resistance or helplessness. The more I build, the more I learn.

Next, one has to ask the all important question. What exactly am I learning for and where am I headed with this path?

What is My Aim with Web Development?

As far as I could see, most people learn the trade of web development with ‘employment’ in mind.

This thought process eventually leads to people specialising in particular areas of web development such as front-end, back-end, database-administration, front-end web design, architecture-design, etc.

For reasons I will be revealing in a bit, this path did not (and does not) interest me. I chose to learn everything (I can) about the field of web development instead. To be fair, there also exists a technical term for this approach: full-stack web development.

But the more I think about it, the more the term ‘full-stack development’ feel like an illusion. No matter how much effort I put in, I don’t see myself becoming an expert in every side of web development. I accept this truth.

But people who claim to be ‘full stack developers’ also often claim to be able to do everything well. I am perhaps still a novice but this claim feels like a blatant lie to me. From my experience, a generalist can never outdo a specialist in their specialty.

What, then, is my goal in learning everything I can about this field? Simple: Build functional software alone. At the very least, I would like to be able to build functional prototypes alone.

I do not have the luxury of hiring a team of competent folks. If I wish to implement and test my creative ideas from my notes application, I have to learn anything and everything necessary to accomplish this task. In short, I do not have an option.

So far, I have established that this path can be frustrating and rewarding. Let’s talk about the negative side first.

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The One Word I Hate the Most in Web Development

Back when I first learned about writing software in my school days, one had to write literally every line of code from scratch. What surprised me about modern software development is the fact that one need not write every single line of code for one’s software.

One can import libraries and build on top of that. This is a fancy way of saying that you take other people’s code (which they have chosen to share, by the way) and write your code on top of that to build something new.

All of a sudden, the world of web/software development seems like a Lego playground, as you pick and choose the modular Lego blocks you need. But there is a grave downside to this.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not very far into my journey with web development. But there is already one word that I hate passionately: “Deprecated”. This means that some piece of software or code is going or is already obsolete.

Why does this happen? Well, technology and ideas develop further. So, it is inevitable for the new to be welcomed and the old to be “deprecated”. But what if one of your Lego blocks gets deprecated?

Aha! The code that you wrote on top of that block may come crashing down if you did not prepare for it. The problem has several levels of complication. But even without deprecation, simple version updates to “borrowed” code often break functionality in your code.

I don’t even wish to get started about the misery of watching your software work perfectly in your local development environment, while it gives the most bizarre errors in the production environment.

One version of one Lego block that works in one environment does not work in another environment.

I initially thought that this should not be a difficult challenge to solve. But as my software started using hundreds of these libraries, a one-man show turned into a recipe for sorrow and misery.

But hey, it’s not all doom and gloom. There are certainly positives to this approach.

The Two Words that I Love The Most in Web Development

Working alone means that I also have a lot of freedom to drive project decisions that make sense to me. I have had the pleasure of interacting with some folks from the industry.

I might be weird for saying this, but there are certain red flags that I see among web development folks. A word of caution here: when I mean red flags, I mean red flags for my approach and am not generalising the notion.

One of these is when someone starts talking about “Agile” or “Scrum”. All this is mumbo jumbo in my head and slows progress down. Sure, these can work when implemented well.

But then again, these are terms that people often twist and turn to suit what they are doing. In essence, terms like “Agile” can mean anything. So, if I don’t like these words, what do I like then?

Two words: Artificial Intelligence (AI). Before you judge me, I am not talking about the AI hype train. When I’m struggling with the most prickly of errors, I find myself turning often to AI for help, and it reduces my cognitive load significantly.

Working alone to debug errors can be depressing. I never knew that AI could be such a valuable social and technical companion. But here we are!

Where Does the Journey Go From Here?

To be frank, I have no clue. As the world of technology surges with an incessantly rapid pace of development, I feel like I am falling behind the curve every single day.

With this insecurity driving me, I am doing the one thing that I can do: learn and put in the work every single day. Perhaps one day, my work creates value for others as well. Time will tell.

If you are interested in learning about interesting technical projects, keep an eye on this space.

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Further reading that might interest you: 

• How To Figure Out Who Is Leaking Your Email?
• How Do Dead People Drive Inequality?
• The Bell Curve Performance Review System Is Actually Flawed

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