Our life as a developer seems to be quite competitive in a world where the use of different programming languages is constant. In this era of programming, web languages are difficult yet progressive choices for extensive learning and career growth.
In this article, you will read about the topmost Front End Developer skills which will help you upscale your expertise in web development. Along with that, here we also have provided the top technical and non-technical Front End Developer skills for better growth in your career.
Who is a Front-end Developer?
The first and foremost question that arises in our mind is, can I be a front-end developer? Before answering this question, l must talk about who a front-end developer is. In simple words, Front-end web development is the development of the GUI (graphical user interface) of any website to make it presentable and interactive. Some programming languages supporting GUI for web development are HTML, HTML5, CSS, CSS3, JavaScript, JQuery, TypeScript, Angular, and React. Thus, a developer skilling in languages is a front-end developer. For being a front-end developer, you will need to go through some professional courses. You can get the best front-end developer course from Knowledgehut.
Front-end Developer Skills
Let us move toward the skills required for becoming a front-end developer:
The learning skills in flowchart model are:
Technical Front End Developer Skills
1. Beginner’s Technical Skills:
An amateur web developer needs to know basic programming languages such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. A brief about these languages is provided below:
- HTML: HTML or HyperText Markup Language is the basic building block of any web page. This is the only language well understood by web browsers. All web pages in the world consist of HTML.
- HTML5: HTML5 is the latest version of HTML. It contains a lot of extra tags like <HEADER>, <FOOTER>, <SECTION>, <ASIDE>, <NAV>, etc. There are some shortcut tags as well like <!Doctype HTML> tag.
- CSS: CSS or Cascading Style Sheet is the styling part of the web page. It beautifies the website by providing many formats, positioning, font styles, and color. The Box style with borders is becoming a trend nowadays.
- CSS3: CSS is just the basic version of styling. Whereas CSS3 is the advanced version of CSS with responsive design. It also provides splitting up styles into modules. To learn CSS, See Section: “Who is a front-end developer?”
2. JavaScript:
JavaScript is the programming language of any web page recognized by web browsers. It is a scripting language with a ‘Document Object Model’ and an object-oriented language with a prototype model. It has variables, constants, control statements, loops, functions, arrays, objects, and many other features to enhance the functionality of a web page. JSON or JavaScript Object Notation is becoming the best way to transfer data in current days. Some Institutions also provide front-end web development courses like Knowledgehut best front-end developer course. It consolidates the entire contents of front-end development in a single course.
3. Intermediate Technical Skills:
The website designers who are equipped with the basic skills can move to the next level where they can learn about JQuery, TypeScript, AJAX, JSON. Let us discuss these languages in brief:
- JQuery: JQuery is a library of JavaScript. Jquery is designed to make HTML DOM tree traversal and manipulation easy. It is very useful for event handling, AJAX, and CSS styles. However, it is mostly used for its ease of functionality and CSS Animation. JQuery is free, open-source software. According to Wikipedia, as of May 2019, jQuery is used by 73% of the 10 million most popular websites. JQuery library is available in the downloaded format as well as in CDN through Google, Microsoft, jquery.com, and many others. JQuery can be downloaded from https://jquery.com/download/.
- Typescript: Typescript is a strongly typed strict object-oriented programming language that builds on JavaScript. It is developed and maintained by Microsoft. Typescript is the base of many advanced web languages like Angular, Vue.js, and React.js. Typescript course comes along with React.js course and under full stack front-end web development.
- AJAX: AJAX is Asynchronous JavaScript And XML. It is not a programming or scripting language in itself, rather it is a technology by which we can perform asynchronous request-response cycles. According to Wikipedia, “Ajax is a set of web development techniques that uses various web technologies on the client-side to create asynchronous web applications”. Web applications can send requests to and receive response from a server asynchronously without disturbing the behavior of the current page with the help of this technology. In current day websites, no one can imagine a page without AJAX. AJAX comes best with JavaScript and JQuery. To learn AJAX in JavaScript or JQuery, See Section: “Who is a front end developer?”
- JSON: JSON has the full form JavaScript Object notation. It is a lightweight data-interchange format. This technology uses JavaScript prototype objects to simply the most complex task of web technology – the transfer of data. JSON is an object-wise syntax for the serialization of objects. It can contain data types like arrays, numbers, strings, Boolean, and even null. To work with JSON files, we get a lot of encoder and decoder libraries for various server-based web languages like JSP, ASP.Net, MVC, Python, etc. JSON comes best with JavaScript and JQuery.
4. Responsive Technical Skills:
Nowadays people are very fond of tablets and mobiles. Responsive websites can be opened on different devices like computers, laptops, notebooks, tablets, smartphones, etc. A responsive website works on display screen size with formats for menus, tables, images, animation, and more. To make a website responsive, we require to know a different set of skills like Bootstrap, Foundation, HTML5 Boilerplate, UIKit. Let us discuss these skills in brief:
- Bootstrap: Bootstrap is a distributed library of CSS and JavaScript files. With Bootstrap we can easily and quickly design and customize responsive mobile-first websites. It is an open-source toolkit featuring SASS and MIXINS. Bootstrap is rated the world’s most popular responsive website designer toolkit by many websites. It contains responsive grid system, extensive prebuilt components, and powerful JavaScript plugins which enhance the responsiveness of any site. It can be obtained from its official site: https://getbootstrap.com/docs/5.0/getting-started/download/. Bootstrap course comes under full stack front-end web development.
- Foundation: According to the official site of the Foundation, it is “The most advanced responsive front-end framework in the world. A Framework for any device, medium, and accessibility. Foundation is a family of responsive front-end frameworks that make it easy to design beautiful responsive websites, apps, and emails that look amazing on any device. Foundation is semantic, readable, flexible, and completely customizable”. It offers a do-it-yourself approach. We can create unique and customized websites by using this library. Many developers find the Foundation to be slightly more complex than Bootstrap. According to them, Bootstrap helps us in easy creation of simple yet elegant websites and it needs very little knowledge of CSS and JavaScript, while Foundation requires more basic skills than Bootstrap. Foundation library can be downloaded from https://get.foundation/.
- HTML5 Boilerplate: This Library is very popular for its cross-browser compatibility. According to Wikipedia, “Boilerplate code or just boilerplate are sections of code that are repeated in multiple places with little to no variation”. A boilerplate is a template rather than a library. An HTML5 boilerplate is added at the start of any web project and henceforth added to all its HTML pages. HTML5 Boilerplate can be downloaded from https://html5boilerplate.com/.
- UIKIT: A UIKIT is a library or tool which helps web developers to develop module-based websites. It has a modular based approach to website designing. We use UIKIT in two ways. For Rapid Prototyping where we use UI KIT to mock-up web pages. And for Final Product Designing where we use UI KIT to create our own customized kits according to our project needs. UI KIT can be downloaded from https://getuikit.com/.
5. Advance Technical Skills:
As we move further to skill ourselves fully in front-end website development, we usually start working with modular programming. We divide our website into components, services, libraries, modules, etc. Some of the advanced technical skills required for understanding this approach are Angular, React.js, Vue.js, Node.js, etc. Let us brief about each of these technologies:
- Angular: Angular is a free and open-source framework that is built for developing web applications. Angular is a rewrite from the team that built AngularJS. It is a typescript-based framework constructed by the Angular Team at Google and supported by a community of individuals and corporations who constantly groom the framework. Angular CLI can be downloaded and installed from node.js by the command “npm install -g @angular/cli”.
- React.js: React.js is a free and open-source framework for developing web applications. Based on UI components, it is a front-end JavaScript library built for designing user interfaces. React is maintained by Meta and a community of individual developers and companies. React and Angular are mostly used in SPA (Single page applications). React.js can be downloaded and installed from node.js by the command “npm install -g create -react -app” and then “create -react -app –v”.
- Vue.js: Vue.js is a front-end JavaScript framework. It was created by Evan You and is maintained by Evan and its core team members. The Vue.js library is used for building user interfaces and SPAs (Single Page Applications). Vue.js can be downloaded from https://v2.vuejs.org/v2/guide/installation.html.
- Node.js: Node.js is an open-source runtime environment. Node.js is a cross-platform, back-end JavaScript environment to execute JavaScript code even without a web browser. It runs on the V8 engine. Node.js can be downloaded from https://nodejs.org/en/download/.
Non-Technical Front End Developer Skills
As we have already discussed technical skills in our previous topic, let us go through some of the non-technical skills in brief:
1. Web Security:
Hacking into web servers is the most common security threat for businesses having an online presence. Web security is the protective measures taken against web-related cybercriminals and threats to web communication. Web Security deals with the stack of protocols in HTTPS. It is a must for any transaction-related online activity. Some sectors using Web Security skills are Banking, Insurance, Law and Order, E-commerce, personal mail accounts, personal profile maintenance account, etc.
2. SPA:
Single Page Applications is the method in which only one page is dynamically loaded and re-loaded for every request made to the website. It is a preferred skill for web applications. Angular, React, etc. are all specifically designed for SPA.
3. UI/UX:
UI stands for User Interface and UX for User Experience. UI/UX skills make the end web projects very user-friendly. Here we understand the marketed audience and design our web apps according to the need and ease of the client.
4. Progressive Web Apps:
According to Wikipedia: “A progressive web application (PWA), commonly known as a progressive web app, is a type of application software delivered through the web, built using common web technologies including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Web Assembly”. Progressive Web Apps can be called from any browser on almost all responsive devices. Learn how to make API calls the right way in Angular and create progressive web applications.
Conclusion
In this article, we understood the skills required for becoming a front-end web developer. Some skills are technical while others are non-technical. However, there are some basic skills like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript which cannot be neglected at any cost. For front-end web development online course, you can go ahead with some sub-courses also like HTML5, CSS, CSS3, JavaScript, JQuery, Angular, React, etc.
