We asked web builders that we admire the same question: What is one thing you learned about building websites this year?
Here’s what they told us.
We would like to thank our ❥ sponsor Automattic for making this site possible. They make many great software products that we use, like Jetpack, WooCommerce, and WordPress.com.
This year I learned, or relearned maybe, that “normal” is subjective at best, and pretty misleading otherwise. If this forsaken year has taught us anything, it’s that there is no such thing as normal. Things change. People adapt. Everything is relative to everything else.
Besides being quite metaphysical, this somewhat connects to front-end development, our industry, and the sort of expectations we have for people down there. Too often, it feels like we tend to apply our own insecurities onto others.
I learned this way and so should you.
I know about this and you should too.
I don’t care about this therefore it’s not necessary.
This behavior needs to stop. We have to acknowledge that this industry is, for the most part, self-made and therefore does not have a clear learning path, let alone a defined success trajectory. As they say, Your Mileage May Vary™.
Let this message be for everyone who’s just starting in this field, everyone fresh out of bootcamp or university, and everyone with insecurities or impostor syndrome. This is for everyone who feels like they are not enough and don’t belong here.
You belong here.
Your experience, no matter how different than someone else’s, is valid.
There is no definitive list of skills to have. There is no mandatory technologies to look for. You don’t have to keep chasing the hype. At the end of the day, knowing HTML, CSS and some JavaScript should be enough to make do. You will learn the rest in due time. You have your entire career to learn new things. There is no rush to learn everything right now.
Breathe. Enjoy what you already know. You are doing well. Welcome to the craft.
Frontend Masters is the best place to get it. They have courses on all the most important front-end technologies, from React to CSS, from Vue to D3, and beyond with Node.js and Full Stack.
You may write comments in Markdown thanks to Jetpack Markdown. This is the best way to post any code, inline like `<div>this</div>` or multiline blocks within triple backtick fences (“`) with double new lines before and after. All comments are held for moderation. Be helpful and kind and yours will be published no problem.
The related posts above were algorithmically generated and displayed here without any load on my server at all, thanks to Jetpack.
CSS-Tricks* is created, written by, and maintained by Chris Coyier and a team of swell people. The tech stack for this site is fairly boring. That’s a good thing! I’ve used WordPress since day one all the way up to v17, a decision I’m very happy with. I also leverage Jetpack for extra functionality and Local for local development.
*May or may not contain any actual “CSS” or “Tricks”.
CodePen is a place to experiment, debug, and show off your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript creations.
CSS-Tricks is hosted by Flywheel, the best WordPress hosting in the business, with a local development tool to match.
ShopTalk is a podcast all about front-end web design and development.