The number of people looking to do online courses has increased by 200% since the coronavirus lockdown. Even before all the pandemic scare, online learning was gaining significant grounds powered by e-learning portals like Udemy, Udacity, and Coursera.
This post is about the best web development courses you can find online, mainly Udemy. And there are literally hundreds of them. If you clicked on this article, that means you already have a fair idea about what a career as a web developer entails. A career as a web dev is a good bet since as of 2020, there are 1.5 billion websites out there. It is also an evergreen field that is facing no immediate threat from automation.
Like every career, the longer you are in it and the projects you have in your profile, the safer is your career.
TL;DR
MERN Stack Front To Back: Full Stack React, Redux & Node. js is ideal for intermediate programmers. If you’re a beginner, you should start here instead: Modern JavaScript From The Beginning
. Please do not buy any course to learn HTML and CSS. You can learn these for free on Free Code Camp and W3Schools. Once you’ve completed the Javascript course, solidify your understanding by building 20 Web Projects With Vanilla JavaScript
.
Next, jump on to learning the React framework in this 40-hour extensive course: React – The Complete Guide (incl Hooks, React Router, Redux)
Frontend
The front end of a website is the part that users interact with. All that you see when you’re navigating around the Internet, from fonts and colors to dropdown menus and sliders, is a combo of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript that is being controlled by your computer’s browser.
The median salary for frontend developers is $68,000
Codeacademy offers a free path for learning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. CodeAcademy is probably the best place for complete beginners to start. Combine this with the thousands of free YT tutorials out there and you are golden.
Yes, these courses will teach you everything that a beginner should know. However, to solidify the concepts in your head, you need to implement a project of your own. For this, I recommend The Complete Front-End Web Development Course! on Udemy.
By the end of the course, you will have learned how to build a Google Chrome extension and code out a Pip-Boy that is based on CSS and Bootstrap.
Another great free resource is Free Code Camp.
Free Code Camp has over 5000 courses and they also help you prepare for interviews.
Backend
Much like picking a frontend framework, picking the right backend language can be a hassle too. Learning a new backend framework like Django, for example, will also involve familiarising yourself with the Python language. So, it’s important to pick one backend framework and stick with it. Master it so that companies will be willing to shell out top dollar for your skills.
The median salary for backend developers is $72,000
Nodejs has been the top choice for backend programmers for a long time now. The Complete Node. js Developer Course (3rd Edition) offers a fantastic introduction to the topic and takes you to the very advanced sections of writing your own REST APIs as well.
npm, Asychronous programming, MongoDB and application deployment on Heroku are also covered to give you a well-rounded backend tutorial. The course is updated as of 04/2020.
However, if Javascript based frameworks are not your cup of tea, then the next best option, that is also a rising star among web developers is Django, a Python-based framework.
Jose Portilla’s Python and Django Full Stack Web Developer Bootcamp is the best and probably the only reputable Django course out there other than the official tutorial of course.
However, the course is taught in Django 1.1! It still is a good way to leanr Django but you’ll have to do a lot of heavy lifting by editing the code to match with Django3 guidelines.
You’re better off following the official tutorial. Python is an amazing language to learn if you’re considering data science too.
At the end of the day, the recommended safe and employable path for newbie web developers is to take the MERN path. By combining the powers of React, Redux, Node, Express & MongoDB, you are setting yourself up for long-term success. These technologies will not go out of fashion anytime soon.
MERN Stack Front To Back: Full Stack React, Redux & Node. js is ideal for intermediate programmers. If you’re a beginner, you should start here instead: Modern JavaScript From The Beginning
. Please do not buy any course to learn HTML and CSS. You can learn these for free on Free Code Camp and W3Schools. Once you’ve completed the Javascript course, solidify your understanding by building 20 Web Projects With Vanilla JavaScript
.
Next, jump on to learning the React framework in this 40 hour extensive course: React – The Complete Guide (incl Hooks, React Router, Redux)
Follow this path and you will be set for life as a web developer. But remember, you can do all the courses on Udemy that you want to, but if you don’t put it onto practise then it’s all good for nothing!
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