New to Full Stack Web Development
I have done other software work in the last(for past 20+ years). I have done QA Testing, Software Team and Project Management, Test Automation using PERL and Python, Data Analysis and Data Science using Python and R. I have also built some Android Apps. Some part of this time time was working for companies, like McAfee, Inc.
From past few months, I have been trying to learn Full Stack Web Development. And boy, it's been hard. I was under the impression, you slap some html and images together and connect to a database(my past favorite was mysql) and you are to good to go. But things these days are different, to say the least.
There are so many different frameworks and ways to build web apps. After, going through scores of articles, youtube videos, I have settled one programming language - JavaScript and Node.js as backend.
I have been reading JavaScript books, watching videos. However, as you feel closer to be ready to build something, you discover, you need to learn some other module or way of doing things.
So, I have settled on to a new approach now(well new for me, maybe not for others). That is I am going to take a opensource and free to use project that has the barebones work already done(like Account management, etc) and then build app features on top of that.
I have been searching for free to use boilerplate projects and found one that is suitable for my use - https://github.com/sahat/hackathon-starter
I have been playing around with this for few days now and I have an idea that I want to build and app around, that I will share soon in a separate post.
Last, but not the least, I am very thankful to Sahat, who wrote the above boilerplate code and was generous enough to share with the world free of cost.
You picked one of the most fragmented ecosystems there is. Be prepared for a lot of uncertainty!
Hey Harish, one thing you may want to consider is using Firebase for the backend. It's helped me tremendously get off the ground quickly and let me focus on the front-end part of web app development. You could call it "half-stack" if you like, but at least for the apps that I want to build, the front end is the important part and Firebase handles the backend part well.
Yes, I considered that. I am a little wary of it though. Back in my Android Development days, I was using an early pioneer in the field called Parse. It was extremely good and made building apps and releasing apps very easy. However, then Facebook shut it down. That was a big bummer. Now, that may not happen with Firebase as Google seems to in for the long term though. But as they say, once burnt, twice shy. Thanks for the suggestion though - I might still check it out.
I hear you, and I know Google does have a reputation off killing off products. That said, I don't see Firebase going anywhere. And Firebase is just a wrapper around Google Cloud and that definitely isn't going anywhere.
If for some reason Firebase was cancelled, I'm confident I could export my data and transition to another stack like AWS. It would be painful and probably eat up a month or so. But I don't think the "lock-in" is as strong as people think it is.
I'm very happy with Firebase so far... I know I would be much much farther behind with my product if I was trying to tackle the full stack.
Whatever you decide, good luck!
Thank You:-)
This comment was deleted a year ago
Thanks you for your kind words and the suggestion. I will take a look at Laravel.
If you do, definitely check out laracasts.com. It's the best coding-related educational value on the internet and even the free offerings are extensive.