Welcome to the Treehouse Community
Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.
Looking to learn something new?
Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.
Start your free trial
Tony Nguyen
24,934 PointsWhat are some important skills you must have to be a Web Developer?
I'm curious and I want to know what your guys opinions are, I looked in the learning adventure for "Become a Web Developer" and I see some skills you have to learn, but what are the others? I would of thought you needed to learn PHP or jQuery also, which is not in the learning adventure. So I just want to get an idea since I have little experience of what Web Developers should learn. Thanks!
4 Answers
missgeekbunny
37,033 PointsIt sounds like you want to look more at becoming a PHP Developer which is a different learning adventure. The one with the simple label is more becoming a ruby developer. But I would suggest if you want to do ruby and php and jquery (though not all play extremely nice with each other) to do both learning adventures.
Tony Nguyen
24,934 PointsOkay, so my next question is does a web developer usually focus on becoming a PHP developer, or do they usually learn all the languages, like learning ruby and also php? Which is more ideal? Again I am not an expert, i'm still trying the best path for myself :)
luangma
2,279 PointsWeb developers normally deal with server-side coding ( .NET, .ASP, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Java, and others), and client-side scripting (HTML5, CSS3, Ajax, jQuery). You don't necessarily need to know all server-side languages, but do need to know the client-side frameworks, which is basically what the learning adventures teach. Once you get a grasp of what website design entails, then you would absolutely need to learn a programming language in order to do the coding for web applications.
As for which is the best, it all depends on you: Which do you find more appealing, practical and consider you could become advanced in? As for whether you need to learn all languages, the answer is no. Web development is normally done in teams, and each developer focuses in one aspect of the project.
missgeekbunny
37,033 PointsI agree. I actually chose php development focus because I like designing for WordPress which is built in php. I did try to learn Ruby and if you look at my profile I have a lot of points in it but after finishing the first part of the project, I realized it wasn't the programming language for me so I stopped. So I'd probably suggest trying both of them and see which language speaks more to the developer in you.
Jon Wood
9,884 PointsI'm glad you made note that PHP and Ruby aren't the only languages/technologies used for web development. I can definitely delve deeper into .NET if needed since I know more about that.
Try not to forget that design is a big part of web development as well. In my experience, however, it's a bit rare to have one person to do a decent design and the programming of a web application. This is where front-end frameworks shine, though.
luangma
2,279 PointsYou're right about that, Jonathan. Design and development go hand in hand, but I really can't understand why nowadays it's expected for developers to know graphic design, and for graphic designers/artists to dive into coding.
Tony Nguyen
24,934 PointsOkay, thank you for answers!