Web Development Skills to Get the Job

Episode Breakdown

• 10:56 Intermediate Knowledge To Get the Job

  1. 11:11 Core Concepts and Methodologies of the Web

     Learn the basics of web methodologies such as model-view-controller (MVC) and model-view-viewmodel (MVVM). MVC is a pattern that divides software architecture into three parts: model, view and controller whereas the MVVM is a pattern that abstracts the view’s state and behavior. The model manages the logic and data whereas the view is the output. There can be multiple views for a set of data. The controller converts inputs into commands for the model and the view, it controls them.

     Object Oriented Programming (OOP) is the predominant paradigm in the web development world. Functional programming is however gaining notoriety and many of the functional patterns have been integrated into OOP languages.

     Take a moment to read the original papers that both waterfall and agile originated. You will see the intended use of each and how they are implemented differently in various companies.

  2. 13:57 How to Maintain a Project Over Time
     

     “All code is legacy when it leaves the door.”

     As a web developer you will need to know what it takes to put software out where you are the maintainer. Your choices as a developer will effect the extensibility and portability of your code base.

  3. 15:25 Unit Testing

     Know why unit testing is valuable but avoid making heavy assertions about how it’s absolutely necessary and any project that doesn’t have it is bad. You will rule out 95% of the industry.

     “Unit testing is code, it’s also part of the code base and has to be maintained.”

     Unit tests are written for code that is especially painful to fix in production. The issue many development teams run into is that unit tests are not maintained along with the rest of the code base.

  4. 16:14 Task and Issue Management

     Take the time now to learn the basics of issue tracking be it with JIRA, GitHub Issues, or Issue Tracker in BitBucket. Learn time savers such as linking and closing issues with commit messages.

     Practice these skills on side-projects and use them even when it might be overkill. You will gain practical knowledge of how to use these that only comes from experience. Also, it will make your codebase easier to read and modify later when you haven’t been working on it in a few months.

  5. 17:51 Debugging
     

     “The hardest problem to solve is the one where you don’t know where the problem is”

     Debugging tools allow you to step through your code line by line watching how the variables changes. If debugging tools are not available simple logging statements or alerts inserted in the code to find where the problem occurs. Setting break points and planning for debugging will improve the way you write code. You won’t write complex one liners but change the shape to make adding break points easier.

  6. 20:42 Project Management

     Effective estimations build into project management. Knowledge of how projects are managed and the various tools used is a critical job skill. Even if you are not a project manager understanding how it works is important to building a working relationship with the project manager and other members of the team.

• 21:44 Advanced Knowledge Stand Out

  “You can have the fastest CPU in the world but if it overheats and fails… you’d rather have several hundred million Raspberry Pis”

  1. 21:55 Data Structures

     Higher level languages are excellent places to practice these skills. Understanding how data is structured, stored, and retrieved can greatly affect your code. For example arrays are quick when finding items but slow when adding whereas linked lists are fast for adding new items but slow in searching for items. Knowing this you are able to optimize your code based on what is important for your app. While you may not need to know the exact details of what it does, understand the overall structure and what to use where in your code. You are always optimizing, it’s a matter of what you are optimizing.

  2. 35:22 Modelling
     

     “You have to take a problem that is too complex to understand in its entirety, extract a common set of elements from it, and represent it a different way.” ~ Jason Roell

     The ability to abstract is key here. Modelling reduces complex problems in to a set of unambiguous procedures. It converts real world problems into a set of true false statements or logic gates.

     Math can be a great ally here for describing and modeling complex problems. Your understanding of the problem however should be such that you can take the mathematical explanation and convert it to a visual spacial example.

  3. 39:52 Search Engine Optimization
     

     “Some of your most important traffic is crawlers and bots”

     An area that not all web developers understand or place their focus is search engine optimization. When working hard to get the app running optimizing for Google may not seem a high priority.

     However there are many factors that need to be considered throughout the development process that will affect a site’s ranking. Create useful sitemaps and use permalinks so that your site is indexable. Otherwise you may be the leader in your field but not show up until the third page on a search result.

     Gain a passing familiarity with Google Analyitics. Be able to tie into social networks and see where traffic is coming from to your site. Get to the point where you are first order ignorant.

  4. 43:31 Design Sense

     Learning the basics of design principles not only helps in communication with designers but will allow you to offer suggestions when they ask the impossible or improbable. Learn the principles of layouts, how to use images, and best practices in typography. A great place to learn more about design is Smashing Magazine.

• 47:47 Honorable Mentions Nice to Know

  1. Empathy in Communication
  2. Customer Service Skills
  3. Proper Usage of Google
  4. Practice Questioning Assumptions
  5. A Native Mobile Platform