Starter Kit for New Web Developers

Alright, you’ve decided you wanna make that move into web development. Congratulations! Now where do you start? What platforms should you get familiar with? What is a code editor and where can you find one?

I’ve compiled a quick list of websites and software that you’ll likely encounter. Feel free to bookmark these links so you have them handy when you need ‘em. 

1. Code Editors

   1. A source-code editor is a program designed specifically for editing code. It may be a standalone application or it may be built into your browser. These are super helpful because they provide built-in capabilities like formatting syntax and auto-completion that make writing code a little easier. Kinda like how Microsoft Word is optimal for writing letters/articles/paragraph-based documents, code editors are optimal for writing code.

   2. Download a code editor like VSCode or Atom + watch a quick YouTube tutorial to familiarize yourself with how it works. I like these tutorials!

      1. VS Code for Beginners 

      2. Atom Tutorial 

2. Platforms for Hosting/Sharing Your Code

   1. GitHub

      1. GitHub is an extremely popular platform for version control and collaboration. You can sign up for an account and host your project folders publicly or privately, and can collaborate with a team and have an extensive record of changes made to your code. Eventually, you can even learn to access GitHub from your terminal! 

   2. Repl.it

      1. I love Repl.it, it was one of the very first sites I used when I started learning to program. It is a free IDE (integrated development environment) that’s completely browser-based so you can access it whenever and wherever you have an internet connection. You can write programs and code in dozens of different languages. Very cool. 

   3. Codepen

      1. CodePen is an online community for testing and showcasing user-created HTML, CSS and JavaScript code snippets.

   4. Glitch

      1. Glitch is an online IDE for JavaScript and Node.js.

      2. This blog provides a great overview of Glitch with screenshots showing how to use it: https://flaviocopes.com/glitch/ 

   5. Netlify

      1. Netlify is a platform that hosts web applications and static websites. You can preview your code easily and host a site on Netlify using a custom link. It integrates with GitHub, which is super helpful. 

3. The Holy Trinity of Websites for Help

   1. Stack Overflow

      1. Stack Overflow is a Q&A site for developers like you and I! It’s kind of like Quora or Reddit for programmers, so if you need help with a coding challenge you can make a post or search for answers to a similar problem. I use StackOveflow almost daily.

   2. MDN

      1. MDN provides in-depth, technical explanations for concepts in many programming languages. 

   3. W3Schools

      1. Free online web tutorials and concept definitions. I like that W3Schools always has multiple examples, and I find the language used to be a bit more accessible than MDN.

I hope this list is helpful! Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.