Useful links for getting started with web development

Update 06/02/14: I’ve just done a quick review of this post and made some changes. There’s loads more I could add but time doesn’t permit right now 🙂

Every couple of years I go back to my old school to participate in a careers convention, where people from a range of industries get together to dish out tips and advice to pupils trying to make career choices. A great cause, especially with uni now being a more challenging prospect here in the UK due to the huge hike in tuition fees. Youngsters really need all the help they can get to make sure they pick the path that’s right for them.

I promised those I spoke to this year that I would post a list of links on my blog as a follow-up to find out more about web development. I should stress that this list is by no means exhaustive; I put it together quite quickly and there’s plenty more I could have included. For example, whilst I’ve tried to include links relating to a range of technologies, inevitably there’s more about the areas I have more experience with. Hopefully though it can still provide plenty of reading material and food for thought to help in evaluating whether web development is a subject worth investigating further as a potential career or perhaps just as a hobby.

I’ll try to update the list from time to time when I think of more (suggestions also welcome via the comments). I’m also hoping to follow this blog post up with some further thoughts on choosing web development as a career.

Without further ado, here are the links:

Programming Languages / Frameworks

  • HTML5/CSS/JavaScript – Open technologies at the heart of the web – learn these first!
  • Node.js – Increasingly popular serverside JavaScript platform
  • Ruby – Widely used
  • Ruby on Rails – One of the most popular web frameworks, built on Ruby
  • Python – A good starter language, often taught on uni courses etc.
  • PHP – Been around a long time and still widely used, though not considered too cutting edge these days
  • ASP.NET – Microsoft’s web platform, used a lot in the enterprise (see also http://asp.net/ and http://msdn.com/)
  • Java – Mostly found in the enterprise, not a good choice if you want to keep ahead of the curve!

Online video/interactive training

  • Treehouse – Web design & development
  • Codecademy – Interactive coding courses in a range of languages including JavaScript, HTML/CSS and Ruby
  • CodeYear – Learn to program in a year (part of Codecademy)
  • PluralSight – Large library of videos for a range of technologies, not free but reasonably priced
  • TekPub – Screencasts on a range of topics, some of which are free (update: has been bought out by PluralSight)
  • appendTo – jQuery/JavaScript training
  • NodeTuts – Node.js screencasts
  • RailsCasts – Ruby on Rails screencasts

(e)Books

Look out for deals of the day from most of these – they tend to have an ebook or two available each day for around £7-£10 (see my Twitter list covering many of the ebook publishers).

Resources

  • Move the Web Forward – One stop shop for keeping abreast of web standards and getting involved in the community
  • Webmaker – A Mozilla project “dedicated to helping you create something amazing on the web”
  • frontend-dev-bookmarks – A huge list of frontend development resources
  • jQuery – Most popular JavaScript library for rapid web development (though use with caution – easy to produce spaghetti code if you’re not careful)
  • Twitter Bootstrap – UI framework that makes it really easy to get a good UI up and running very quickly
  • Google Reader – RSS aggregator – subscribe to blogs and news sites and have all articles brought together in one place to save having to check each site manually (update: service has closed)
  • Feedly – A drop-in replacement for Google Reader, a good way to aggregate articles from across the web into a single feed (or multiple if you prefer)
  • TweetDeck – Useful Twitter client for monitoring topics and lists of accounts to help breakdown the wealth of information that flows through Twitter

Databases

  • MySQL – Most popular open source relational database server (free)
  • PostgreSQL – Another popular open source relational database (free)
  • SQL Server – Microsoft’s SQL database, common in the enterprise (free cutdown editions available – Express and Compact Edition)
  • MongoDB – Popular open source “NoSQL” database (free) – an alternative approach to “traditional” databases (has pros and cons)
  • CouchDB – Another popular NoSQL database

News / Views / Tutorials

  • Hacker News – Anything and everything of interest to a techie
  • Reddit Programming – As above – see http://reddit.com/r/LearnProgramming/ and other related sections also
  • Smashing Magazine – Large selection of articles, resources etc relating to web design
  • HTML5 Rocks – Google resource with a host of articles, tutorials and resources on HTML5 and modern browser techniques
  • DailyJS – JavaScript/Node.js news
  • Ruby Inside – Ruby news and tutorials
  • Techmeme – General tech news, usually one of the first places you’ll find the big stories
  • Twitter – One of the best ways of keeping on top of everything – many blogs tend to post on their Twitter feeds when new articles are posted, plus there’s an endless stream of useful links being shared

Help

  • StackOverflow – Q&A site for developers with specific problems, usually related to specific source code
  • Programmers – Q&A site for programmers with higher-level conceptual problems

Mailing Lists

Podcasts

Web Hosts

  • Heroku – For Ruby, Node.js, Python, Java and more (requires understanding of source control – see below)
  • AppHarbor – For .NET (requires understanding of source control – see below)
  • Amazon Web Services (AWS) – Amazon’s cloud platform, a more granular and pay-as-you-go way of choosing your hosting infrastructure
  • Azure – As above, but Microsoft’s equivalent platform
  • WebHostingTalk – Great forums to help find/discuss any type of web host
  • LowEndBox – Useful place to find a really cheap and basic (but functional) server to manage yourself

Jobs

Source Code / Version Control

  • Git – One of the most popular version control systems out there
  • Mercurial – Similar to Git, slightly easier learning curve
  • Github – The most popular source code host, based on Git
  • BitBucket – Supports Git and Mercurial
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13 Comments

  1. Chris
    Posted November 22, 2013 at 2:38 pm | Permalink

    If any of your readers want to learn how to program in ASP.NET, there’s a set of tutorials at http://www.visualbasictutorial.net which is for the absolute beginner to learn how to program properly. Thank you!

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  6. Posted October 30, 2014 at 6:11 am | Permalink

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  7. Posted June 1, 2015 at 5:30 pm | Permalink

    Very informative post! thanks for the links you gave will definitely look out on those.

  8. Posted September 13, 2015 at 12:07 pm | Permalink

    This blog is very informative. Thank you for your such a great post.

  9. Posted November 4, 2015 at 11:23 am | Permalink

    I have been developing now for around 7 years professionally in web applications world. I currently work in the banking industry with c# .NET, but have been dying to find the courage and time to break out on my own. I know I can do it, and always see my ideas I mention to my wife out there a few months down the road. 🙁 I just want to do what I love, but also be home with my two kids. I bought a farm house in north Michigan’s thumb to get my children out of the city, but still work in the city. I daily stair at my desk with the exact same feelings. What do you think …. let me know.

  10. Posted March 4, 2016 at 9:50 am | Permalink

    Thanks for sharing, I’ve been looking fr reliable sources to improve my programming skills for so long.

  11. Posted June 14, 2016 at 6:41 am | Permalink

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  12. Posted December 28, 2022 at 12:48 pm | Permalink

    Getting the hang of web development can be a daunting task, but never fear – there are plenty of helpful resources available to give you a leg up. Check out these useful links and start building your own stunning websites today!

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