Tech, Tech 1,2,3… Which industry is right for me?
The first question I ever asked myself when considering moving into the tech industry was, “Where do I go first?”. This proved to be a good question with WAY to many answers, and as a result, I was often left with even more questions than I started with. Doubly so when the welcome wagon from the overall community read “RTFM” (Read The Fricking Manual)… right… but which one? Since that time so very many years ago I have found that things have changed drastically in that respect.
This journey for me started with C++ (with no prior coding knowledge), then ventured into HTML, CSS, Javascript (at the time standing at mostly complete halt) then lead to PHP and MySQL, Wordpress, ROR (Ruby on Rails), and on and on for quite some time before I finally found myself back to using HTML, CSS, and Javascript. And even now I have learned even more, but we’ll get to that soon. For now, I will try to create a clear separation between the three most common aspects of web development.
Front-End Web Development:
The core of this type of development centers around the use of HTML, CSS and most commonly (though not always) JAVASCRIPT, and in this case can involve a wide array of technologies. But the goal is always the same, make the part of the site that the “user” will see and interact with. No matter what technologies you choose to use you’ll always be focused on the “client side” of the site. This aspect of development is often equal parts of visual design and logic, but generally, the overall design is handled by a design team.
Back-End Development:
This is the part you likely never see, it takes place behind the scenes and usually faster than you can even notice. This is the part of the development process that focuses on taking the front end and connecting it to a database, hosting it on a server, and supplying the data from users/clients to the needed data and tools to make the site run correctly. Without the Back-End technologies, sites like this very one you are reading this on cannot function. These technologies often include PHP, MySQL, JAVASCRIPT (Yep here too), .NET and much more. This aspect of development is more logical in its general nature.
Full-Stack Development:
You have probably guessed it by now but this role is a combination of both of the above roles and also has its time and place, most employers love to come across suitable Full-Stack developers as they have a slightly more versatile skill set but, this like most has it’s ups and down too.
From here I will leave you with a few words for thought, first I strongly advocate for following your truest passion, but ALWAYS leave room for a change in preference. I would also say that a couple of important factors one might want to consider when trying to decide is, location, responsibilities, what’s in demand near you, average pay, and most importantly… WILL YOU ENJOY IT? Yeah, you won’t ALWAYS know that answer, but if you have an idea… trust it at least enough to dig a little deeper before leaping into the deep end just yet! Comments, questions and or suggestions are more than welcome! (next post “The Full Web Dev Journey”)
