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Web Dev

Beginner Guide

So how do you develop a website?

Note: Coding your own website doesn’t have to be the only way you can build a website, an overview of different tools is here.

Introduction - How to Develop a Website?

The basic building blocks are HTML and CSS. But what even is that?
Back when I first started I also had no idea. So I began with the Interneting Is Hard tutorial, a guide that got recommended to me. It gave me a great introduction, right after finishing the tutorial I began working on my first website which was a portfolio page.

The process was really hard, things were so complicated. I underestimated how long it takes to build a website and how much detail goes into the process. The beginning for me was really hard and not that enjoyable. But I continued to learn and got better. The more time I invested into developing the easier things got and the more enjoyable they became.
The web development space is great but also intimidating at times, there’s so much to learn that you won’t ever run out of things to take a look at. But remember, it’s okay to not know things, no one knows everything and there’s no perfection, even the in web dev space.

Getting Started

  • Start with a tutorial. I can recommend the Interneting Is Hard tutorial.
  • Build your own thing and KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid).
  • “Oh no, how do I do that?”. This question will come up when you want to do something. Luckily there are many answers out there.
    • Search for it on the internet. Use the search engine of your choice. You don’t need to remember everything. Everyone looks up what they need, this is very normal especially as a developer.
    • I found W3Schools very helpful when I first began. I went through their introduction of HTML and CSS and often came back to their page. The MDN Web Docs are also very helpful but a bit harder to understand for beginners, but they are the go-to documentation for web standards.
    • AI tools. Tools such as ChatGPT or Claude are insanely helpful, they are great at providing examples, explaining code or concepts and finding errors. But use them wisely, understand the code and concepts yourself, you can’t use an AI to do all the coding for you. And be aware, they make mistakes.
    • Video content. There are great Youtubers like Kevin Powell that make learning CSS a lot easier.
    • Friends. Sadly I can’t share my friend Jan with you. But what I can say instead is that you should share the things you are currently working on and the things you have made. Don’t shy away from asking friends what they think. And, learning together can also be a great thing.