Front-End development has always fascinated me. I am impressed by the animations and designs I see on the web. The user experience whilst surfing the web is getting better by the minute. Interactive buttons that do an animation when you hover over it, change color when you click on them, and some even look like they are floating. That is simply insane!!!
This summer as I am doing my internship, I am focusing a lot more of my attention on front-end development. At this point in my life, I have focused too much on learning python, Java, C, and C++. Whilst I have not completed enough projects in these languages, I do feel comfortable solving problems in these languages. The pressure to know more in order to make it in this field sometimes is too much. In today’s society, it is not enough that you have mastered python. The field isn’t about specializing in one language and using only that. It has gotten to the point of who knows more. This is why I felt the need to try my hand with front-end development.
How has it been?
Possibly the most important lesson I learned when beginning front-end was being humble. There are so many talented people in this world who come up with insane animations and subtle effects. At the same time, I am still learning about bootstrap and flexboxes. Granted, I don’t have a lot of experience yet and I am only beginning to spread my wings as I keep learning. The hardest feeling is looking back at myself a week ago and thinking, “I could have done so much more”. I have to remind myself that I am only thinking like that because I now know so much more.
I can easily create 3 pane layout with bootstrap, I can mix and match outside javascript libraries with bootstrap to make easily resizable panes. I can more comfortably read the documentation when I need something to be done, and most importantly I sincerely understand the importance of web standards and good documentation. I know that I have so much more to learn as I keep on going on this full-stack developer pathway, but nonetheless, I am fascinated.
It is much more time-consuming than I imagined because of all the frameworks that I had to learn. I am finding this new creative side of me that pays more attention to color palettes, understands the impact of button positioning, and considers the possibility of animation as a tool to make the experience more comfortable for the user.
I feel humbled mostly because of the power I carry now. My design can make or break the whole company. If the website is not up to the bar and crashes often, then I have failed. If it is not secure or cannot handle the load, then I have failed. I understand now that front-end developers are truly powerful because they have all the pieces and they choose how the image turns out the best. I respect front-end development work much more now and cannot wait to develop my skills even further.
Notes and thoughts
I do already feel much more comfortable writing out the layout of the document and I am a little more comfortable with creating a design with CSS. I am still learning to use JavaScript to its fullest extent in order to create more animations and cool onClick functions. I am baffled by how much is out there and I cannot wait to see where I will go next.
I am currently doing freeCodeCamp courses too. It offers a lot more coding practice than LinkedIn Learning that my school has currently access to, which is very nice and comforting. Of course, I get a lot of practice by doing my internship as well. This is all so exciting. I love working in this industry. All that it comes down to is whether I have a positive impact or not. I want to use my knowledge and skill for good, to change the world for the better.
Is there a better tool to control the layout of the page instead of writing out different padding and margin numbers to see how it works?
There should be a tool to draw out the layout with boxes and it generates an appropriate responsive grid box for you.