What is a Web App Developer?

A Web App Developer is a person who creates, develops or designs web applications. 

What are web applications? 

A web application is any software that runs in a web browser. It is created in a browser-supported programming language (such as the combination of JavaScript, HTML and CSS) and relies on a web browser to render the application.

Web applications are, therefore, computer programs allowing website visitors to submit and retrieve data to/from a database over the internet using their preferred web browser.

The data is then presented to the user within their browser as information is generated dynamically (in a specific format, e.g. in HTML using CSS) by the web application through a web server. 

What do Web App Developers do?

Web App Developers define just how the data is transferred and related between the website and the user. So behind that Gmail or Steam icon on your desktop, there is a great deal of sophisticated architecture at work.

As an aspiring Web App Developer, you can spend countless hours immersing yourself in online lectures, tutorials, strategy guides and essentially polishing up on the theory of how the machine works. Still, oftentimes, there is no substitute for hands-on experience.

Technical landscape & web development

Ever since the internet became the most ubiquitous distributed application system we could have imagined, this enormous, ever-expanding technical landscape has needed the dedication of Web Application Developers. 

This was an inevitability given the web’s exponential growth since the early ’90s and the significance of our interconnectivity on a global scale. This interconnectivity was on all levels – cultural, ideological, educational, technological, economic, among many others. Therefore, the internet needed guiding hands to facilitate travel – to allow information transfer and provide user-friendly navigation through countless processes.

So, who are the people behind the development of these applications? What is their purpose, and how do they go about the process, from writing the first line of code to final implementation?

How to become a Web App Developer

Like the aspiring engineer or even amateur tinkerer, if you’re curious about how the underlying system is formed, what supports it, what maintains it, what defines how it looks and how it feels, don’t be afraid to fail. Your first steps to becoming a web app developer, however, are:

1. Learn basic code
   Learning basic code through an online resource like our 5 Day Coding Challenge will show you if you have an aptitude for simple software development. 
2. Choose a learning method.
   If, after sampling how to write code, you’ve decided to proceed, then choose a learning method. Of course, we recommend a supported programme like our Full Stack Software Development programme. 
3. Learn appropriate languages
   To become a web app developer, it’s incredibly important to learn front-end, back-end, or full-stack languages and technologies. Of vital importance are the likes of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. But also languages like Python are proving essential for today’s web applications.

Become familiar with open source

It’s one thing to encourage you to disassemble your toaster. It’s quite another to tell you to throw yourself headlong into your first development project. As you can imagine, there’s always going to be pitfalls to self-tutelage, so we do actively encourage the use of open-source resources to fill in the blanks.

A Web App Developer needs to understand, particularly in their infancy, that even in failure, hours are never wasted if they hint at future progress.

Tools for developing web apps

The internet is awash with tools that can help create and maintain web apps. In this article, you can find some really useful tools. Others worth looking at include: 

• Angular.JS
• GitHub
• JQuery
• Bootstrap
• React.JS

Web applications – all around us

If you work in an office environment or even spend much of your time at a desktop, web applications are constantly at your fingertips. From editing a spreadsheet on Google Docs so that your colleague can view and edit it collaboratively, uploading photographs to the iCloud, listening to music, checking the train timetable, managing your expenses on mint, or simply checking your Gmail.

For most of us, web applications are just a click away. They’ve embedded themselves into our everyday schedules for some time now. They’re part of the cultural consciousness now.

Expectations of a modern-day Web App Developer?

Immediately it should be understood that while there is an overarching skill set that lends itself to the vast majority of tasks met by Web App Developers, the technical skills and tools they use often change on a project-to-project basis. Overall, a typical day might include any, or all, of the following tasks:

• Developing and managing software packages for websites.
• Developing and managing installation programs for websites.
• Programming web application codes.
• Programming content and page links.
• Troubleshooting and debugging.
• Analysis and testing.
• Niche designing.

Five days as a Web App Developer

As mentioned above, the first step in becoming a web app developer is to learn some of the basics of code to see if you have an aptitude. Our free 5 Day Coding Challenge will allow you to build your first ever web page after just one hour a day over five days. Register now through the form below.