How to get started with front-end web development in 2021

📖 4 min read

Throughout my career, I've had numerous friends and family ask me how would one gets started with web development today. With an sheer amount of courses and the variety of the topics in those courses, it can be very overwhelming and may seem daunting to get anywhere with it all.

The goal of this blog post is to take someone with zero technical knowledge in web development, and provide them a path which I think streamlines the learning needed to be a successful front-end developer in 2021.

Codecademy - Learn HTML

Codecademy - Learn HTML

HTML is the foundational building blocks of all websites. This free course runs though all the different HTML elements, their behavior, and their sematic meaning. No prior HTML skills or know-how are necessary to take this course. It is totally for beginners working with HTML.

Codecademy - Learn CSS

Codecademy - Learn CSS

This free course provides you with a crash course in styling with CSS. This course mainly covers the basics of styling with CSS, and includes in depth explanations around the different CSS properties and how they are used.

Codecademy - Learn Intermediate CSS

Codecademy - Learn Intermediate CSS

The Learn CSS course does a good job with the basics and Learn Intermediate CSS builds upon those basics with the knowledge of how to accomplish elegant transitions and respond to different screen sizes and devices. This is another free course!

Codecademy - Learn the Command Line

Codecademy - Learn the Command Line

This paid course provides you with a basic understanding of how to navigate, access, and modify files and directories without the need of a mouse. While this course does not do deep dive into the command line, it provides a great foundation to then build upon.

Wes Bos - Beginner JavaScript

Wes Bos - Beginner JavaScript

Wes describes this course as "A fun, exercise heavy approach to learning Modern JavaScript from scratch". This course is 100% beginner friendly with no JavaScript experience required, but Basic HTML and CSS knowledge is assumed.

I personally think Wes is a fantastic teacher and have taken a number of his courses. You can purchase the starter course or the master package to get access to all of the different modules and more.

Wes Bos - JavaScript 30

Wes Bos - JavaScript 30

JavaScript 30 is a free course and challenge all in one. The idea is to build 30 things in 30 days with 30 tutorials. This is done with no frameworks, no compilers, no libraries, and no boilerplate. Just Vanilla JS ❤️ 🥰

Wes Bos - ES6 for Everyone

Wes Bos - ES6 for Everyone

ES6 for everyone is a premium training course to strengthen your JavaScript skills and master all that ES6 and beyond have to offer. This course has been recently updated for ES7/ES2016 and ES8/ES2017 including Async+Await, Babel 7 and more! You can purchase the starter course or the master package to get access to all of the different modules and more.

Wes Bos - React For Beginners

Wes Bos - React for Beginners

The website for React for Beginners, states that with this course you can "Learn React.js in just a couple of afternoons" and that is not a lie. This was my first formal introduction to React.js personally and I finished this course with a much better understanding of the inner workings of React.js. You can purchase the starter course or the master package to get access to all of the different modules.

Wes Bos - Advanced React & GraphQL

Wes Bos - Advanced React and GraphQL

In this course, you dive right into many more advanced React.js topic and will build an online store with React and GraphQL. The course was recently updated and re-recorded for the latest in React.js, Hooks, Apollo 3 and the Keystone Headless CMS. You can purchase the starter course or the master package to get access to all of the different modules and more.

If there's anything that you think should or shouldn't be included on this list, shoot me a DM on twitter @kevinlangleyjr!