Is web development hard?

Is creating website really so hard? This is a question I get from people not in the industry after I tell what we do at AGILEDROP. My reply is that web development is hard because it is just one form of programming. And programming is hard. Difficult to learn and even more difficult to master.

Why is programming so hard?

When you are developing, you are creating new things. Spawning solutions from thin air. Programming is an art. Programming is also inventing things. Manuals for inventing can not exist. Instructions on how to do programming will never be complete, only indicative, guiding. What you do with programming has not been done before, not the same.

Many times, developing complicated software results in problems, frustration. There is a constant need to think in new ways. Problem-solving is the core of the art. As a programmer, you need to embrace and accept that you’ll never know when and in what form problem will appear. The reality is not elegant or simple; it is chaotic and unpredictable.

You will find documentation is wrong. Weird hardware bug takes you days until you will realize it was not your fault. Many times you spend hours looking for a spelling error that was staring you in the face all the time.

To be a programmer, you need to be a person who gets excited about solving hard problems. For example, if you found math to be an interesting subject in school, you will have no issues with programming.

So, is web development hard?

Compared to mobile or desktop development, web development is not hard. Most web development today is done on top of open source which makes frameworks, tools, and documentation accessible to everyone.

You also need to learn basic conceptual foundation.  You shouldn’t start with something like jQuery or Angular!  You need to focus on understanding the basic web development models: HTML, Form processing, and back-end interaction such as with a database.  Know those layers before you start getting into the advanced stuff.  Without an understanding of the basic foundation, it’s going to take you a lot longer than it needs to.

Where to start learning?

Whether you are new to web development, I would advise starting with an open source software that has an active community. When I started in the Drupal , people in the community enabled me to grow very fast from a beginner to an entirely independent developer.

How can my knowledge be tested

To fully understand how deep the knowledge of an individual is when it comes to web development or programming the only route to go is to look at the experiences, references, and do a test project. Recently I applied to join Toptal Web engineering group where the process of selecting a candidate is very sophisticated. If you want to understand where you with your current level of experiences and knowledge I recommend you to put yourself out there.