I just started working as a novice Web Developer. I know PHP pretty well, as wel
ID: 651578 • Letter: I
Question
I just started working as a novice Web Developer. I know PHP pretty well, as well as some basic jQuery.
Anyway, my boss told me I should explore and learn about MVC, Memcache, Design Patterns, how Apache servers work and how to set one up etc.
What I want to ask is actually this: What should I learn further? Web Development is a big area and most odds are that I'll never stop learning, but what are the basics I should learn about? What are the fundamentals?
Currently I'm focusing on Server Side Development, but a very big part of me also wants to become a front-end ninja, so please consider that in your comments.
Thanks in advance, you rock. :)
Explanation / Answer
These days, being a web developer doing both front and backend will be pretty hard for a beginner.
Javascript is taking over the web development world, meaning that the frontend side is not just about "writing some jquery".
80% of the frontend will be doable with abit of declarative jquery, never the less this is a bad way of coding. Several js frameworks are available to power up your frontend.
For the backend side, these days the backend technology does not realy matter since most of the work goes to the frontend.
Javascript have become more than just some code to visualize the UI (animations, simple ajax calls,...) Using MVVM pattern (knockoutjs, backbone, ...) you can create well designed javascript code.
For the backend, I would advice going for MVC (i.e. frameworks like CodeIgniter). I'm not a PHP developer, but a .NET developer so I 'm not 100% aware of the best PHP frameworks. But I guess this is more a personal favor.
If you decide to be a whatever-side programmer, I adivce you to google on the following things:
SOLID Principles
MVC pattern
MVVM pattern
General design patterns in both php and javascript.
Apart from this, there is so much you could learn...
No one can tell you exactly what you should learn... Basicly, being a developer (web or none web) means you will have to keep on studying for your entire life.
But if you want to become a kick-ass web developer, I strongly recommend digging into javascript. And I am not talking about basic jquery (which looks powerful already), but make yourself a javascript OOP ninja!
Take a look at Single Page Applications aswell!