10 Tips to Become a Full-Stack Developer in 2020’s
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Full-Stack Developer is a kind of programmer who can handle multiple tasks in full-stack web or mobile development. The full-stack development structure has two kinds of layers which are Front-end and Back-end development.
Refer to this blog for the full-stack application structure:
To become a full-stack developer, you should learn how to develop an application, including in front-end and back-end development. However, the full-stack developer must know how the whole system works, including the internal architecture. Therefore, involving in the software system design and documentation is a great opportunity.
Learning everything without the proper steps is too challenging and time-consuming. However, following this article is the key to help you to become a full-stack developer.
This article will be giving you 10 tips that may help you to find ways to become a full-stack developer.
The sections are sorted from low to high-level of learning process tips. And each section has outbound links that will navigate you to another page for the additional learnings.
Learn the basic technologies for web development (HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript).
Tip #1: you must know how to handle the essentials of web development. Since the most common application for full-stack development is web development. Therefore, learning the essential tools for web development brings a good impact on the beginners.
In modern software development technologies, you can get application without learning the essentials. Additionally, there are a lot of companies that offer services or good template designs for your web application. Therefore, even if there are satisfying services and templates out there online. It still necessary to learn the basics of web development. For instance, you will get to the point that you need to customize your template. Therefore, if you don’t know how to customize it. You will stick to the template that doesn’t meet your application’s needs.
Whether you buy a template or not, you still need to invest time learning the basic web development skills. However, this section offers a quick tutorial to learn the web basics including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript:
Refer to this post for the starting point of the basic web tutorial:
Master at least one Core Programming Language
Tip #2: mastering and learning a core language is a good start for the beginners. Therefore, it will help to understand the basic and advanced of back-end development. Additionally, it will also help developers to understand the structure of the back-end development.
Core language like Java refers to the essentials of programming languages like flow control statements, objects, classes, functions, etc.
The back-end application contains the logical function of the system like data computation and other functions. Therefore, if you master at least one programming language, it will be beneficial to your development career.
Here are the top three examples of core programming languages for the beginners:
- 1. Python
- 2. Ruby
- 3. Java
To learn Java programming language you can go to this link for Java tutorial:
Learn to develop front-end application
Tip #3: Make sure you already know the essentials of web development. Therefore, you can easily understand the front-end development structure.
The front-end developer is responsible for creating a part of the system that interacts with the users. And also a developer who makes a user-friendly design of a system.
Learning front-end is the first step for understanding on how the full-stack application works. I recommend that you must learn the front-end development first, before the back-end development.
Since learning front-end development is quite too easy than back-end. Since all you need is to make a user interface design, and the back-end will handle the rest. Plus, the functions that will invoke the request from back-end to perform the transaction between the user and the system. However, if you get involve in the system architecture analysis and design, meaning you are making an idea from scratch. Therefore, it isn’t easy to handle front-end development. Because you are facing the pressure of the client’s feedback and request about the system
Furthermore, front-end developers are not only focusing on user interface creation. Therefore, they are also involved in design analysis for the system’s architecture. And they also transform the client’s requirements into system requirements. Therefore, as a front-end developer, you should also make sure that the system design follows the client’s requirements.
There are a certain tools you can use for development a front-end application like frameworks, templates and other development tools.
Basic Front-end Development Tool:
Refer for the tip #1 for the information and tutorials.
- HTML
- CSS
- JavaScript
Advanced Front-end Development Tool:
Here are the top 5 best frameworks for front-end development:
- 1. React.js
- 2. Angular
- 3. jQuery
- 4. AngularJS
- 5. Vue.js
Refer to this post for more information about front-end application and development:
Learn to develop back-end application
Tip #4: The challenging part of being a back-end developer is, he handles a lot of configuration mostly between application and database. Therefore, you don’t just focus on the application you must consider learning database management app like MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, etc.
The back-end contains the application’s core like data computations, logical algorithms, functions, and more. And you must know how to work with the data and objects. Therefore, some frameworks provide design patterns and structures that can help with data manipulation.
Furthermore, it’s a big advantage if you mastered at least one core language. Which is also mentioned above on Tip #2.
And also, you should consider learning the Linux command line. Because the back-end applications are usually deployed and running in the Linux server.
Basic Back-end Development Tools
Refer to the Tip #2 for more information and tutorial of core language:
- Python
- Ruby
- Java
- C#
- PHP
Advanced Back-end Development Tools
Frameworks
There are also a lot of frameworks available for back-end development. However, it depends on what programming language you are using. For example, you are using Java, therefore, you can use the Spring framework.
Here is the list of frameworks for back-end development:
- Python: Django
- Ruby: Ruby on Rails
- Java: Spring
- C#: ASP.Net
- PHP: Laravel
If you want to learn Java Spring Framework you can refer to the tutorial below:
Back-end frameworks are more complicated to learn if you don’t have a piece of knowledge in Design Patterns and OOP:
Understanding of design patterns
Tip #5: Full-stack developers use design patterns to design a code structure that contains objects and classes to solve a problem and to determine the reusable function and to prevent the complexity of the code, and design patterns include the impact on the software’s flexibility, extensibility, and maintainability.
The Design Patterns consists of classes and objects to create a solution for a general design problem in a particular software application, in this section describes the importance of design pattern in full-stack web applications.
Design patterns are usually used in back-end development since back-end is using the Object-Oriented Programming Language like Java, C#, Phyton, Ruby, etc. for creating a logical function for core of the full-stack application, it is necessary to have a solid design pattern structure to avoid problems, and to prevent the unreadable codes(spaghetti codes), so it can be easily read and understand by other developers, and it will help developers to save time on maintaining and expanding the application.
You don’t need to create or implement a design pattern for your application, the framework provides a structure that includes design pattern that you can use for your development, but requires to know object-oriented programming, so you can easily understand the framework’s structure and the design pattern.
Refer to this post for Object-oriented programming tutorial:
Choose the appropriate dev tools for you
Tip #6: Using tools are very helpful for developers. Therefore, it helps developers to increase their productivity. And also save a lot of time in software development.
Some software tools have auto-configuration, auto-generation, or drop-down features that provide everything you need in software development. However, You don’t have to study and use all of the popular software tools out there. And choosing the appropriate tools for your development is the right decision.
For example, Sublime Text is more popular and useful than notepad++. However, you are prepared notepad++ than Sublime Text. Therefore, you don’t have to switch to Sublime Text since they are the same Text Editor and both are fit for web development.
below is the list of software tools you can user for software development:
- IDE
- Text Editor
- Photo Editor
- Diagram Software Tool
- Browser
Here is the link for more information about the list of software tools for full-stack development:
Use version control in big projects
Tip #7: Full-stack application is a huge project, imagine without version control, every time you need to back up the source code, you have to compress it in the zip file, which it will consume you a lot of time to do that every changes you made, and then save somewhere in your local file which is not safe for the project.
And it takes time to figure out which current source code in your backup files is correct, and you and your team will suffer recovering the previous source code that needs to recover immediately, implementing version control is the key to help you and your team to manage the changes of the project.
Refer to this post for more information about the version control tool:
Learn Structured Query Language for data management
Tip #8: Structured Query Language or SQL is a standard programming language used to manage and manipulate data in a relational database management system(RDBMS) like MySQL, SQLite, Oracle, PostgreSQL, and more.
RDBMS uses SQL as a standard language, however, they have still differences in terms of the speed, and commands, and the way of managing the data, they extend SQL to have a unique and useful database management system.
Although there are plenty of applications, tools for maintaining and managing the data, still, you must know the benefits of SQL in full-stack development, and also you need to learn the basics of SQL commands like insert, select, update and delete.
Back-end applications are connected to the database system and use the framework, to manage and manipulate the data, some frameworks have their structure for executing SQL commands, so developers reduce the effort of writing SQL commands in the back-end app, however, in some cases developers will force to use native SQL commands when the data are too complicated because native SQL commands are much faster and easier use than framework SQL commands.
SQL is also one of the requirements of back-end development, even if you use a native SQL or not, it still necessary to study SQL commands to understand the back-end structure clear and easy, here is the list of relational database management system software:
- MySQL
- SQLite
- PostgreSQL
- Oracle
- MS SQL
Note: The naive SQL command mentioned above are the actual and standard SQL commands used in the relational database management system
Get involve in the system documentation
Tip #9: The reason for including this section is to let you know that software development is not just built by coding or programming, the software development also needs to be documented, the average developers don’t want the idea of system documentation, or they don’t want to get involved on it, software requirements are made with the document, you and your team can’t start the development without the software requirements if you want to be full-stack development you need to study documentation because you will get involved in the whole project development, it is risky if your software doesn’t have documents, what if your clients want to see some documentation, like the progress of the software, the flow of the software, or the current user interface of the software, it’s a good practice if you always get prepared.
It is necessary to have documentation in full-stack development because in front-end, you and your team need a screen design document to start the user interface implementation and in back-end needs database design to start the object and functions implementation.
Here is the sample list of the software development documentation:
- System requirements
- Screen design
- System flow
- Database design
- User manual / User guide document
- System testing documentation
Advantages
- Prevent misunderstanding in software requirements
- Save time for the team’s development process
- Guidelines for system flows and functions
- Software development progress monitoring
Start from small projects
Tip #10: If you are a beginner and you want to become a full-stack developer, learning to create an actual project is much better than studying only the codes because not applying the things you’ve learned immediately is not a good practice, you can get small project by helping your friends or create applications that will provide the common needs of the people, look to the web site or social media and check out the sample applications there. Think about building your experiences and skills first instead of thinking about the high pay projects, your goal is to learn first, and you can achieve it by providing your service with the lowest pay, or even if for free.
I remember last time I helped my college friend creating their thesis projects, I’ve learned a lot and my creative skill was improved, and not only my skills but also its give me another opportunity to help other people and help to increase my experience and skills, and then after we’ve finished his project, my friend recommended me to work for his friend’s project, which is POS system for his friend grocery’s store, and that was my first client, and his friend also recommended me to the other people for another opportunity and started to contact me asking for my service, so that’s why I became what I love and started to enjoy the development.
Always remember that giving the high value of your service with a small amount of money doesn’t mean that it will not give you a great return, there is always a good return like learning and improving new skills and experience, just be patient and humble, and the money will come for you not you come for money.
Conclusion
These 10 tips are based on the real full-stack development experienced. However, there is a lot of pieces of information and other tools are not yet included. So all you need to do is find it by yourself read books, do research, and use social media to get new information about the technologies.
Being a good full-stack developer or any software developer is not about the years of experience, the technologies are constantly changing every day, so even if you are in 10 years of being a full-stack developer, you need to be always updated in technologies and you should never stop learning because the technologies never stop evolving.
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