10 tips to finely tune your web dev skills - Parker Software
10 tips to finely tune your web dev skills
Whether you’re new to web development, or you’re a veteran in the field, there’s always room in programming for growth, learning and improvement.
Web development is no exception, and there’s a near-constant need for developers to grow and improve their web dev skills.
So, to that end, here are 10 tips to help you finely tune your web dev skills.
1. Use your web dev skills every day
The road to improving — and finely tuning —any skill is to keep practising. The more you use your skills, the more proficient you will become at them. So, be sure to write code every day, or take time to think about design and layout. Don’t let your skills atrophy.
Open-source projects offer the opportunity to immerse yourself in different requirements — meaning the chance to apply your web dev skills creatively.
Creating your own project is a fantastic way to exercise web dev skills. You can deliberately choose elements you want to work on. You can choose your favourite tasks to polish your project. You’ll be pushed to look up and learn when you meet challenges you don’t know how to solve. And, at the end of it, you have something that showcases your talent.
4. Manage time and learn to prioritise
Web development can be a chaotic and busy occupation. You have deadlines and numerous projects to keep on top of. (Alongside all your extra learning.) So, you can fine-tune your web dev skills by honing your ability to manage your time and prioritise tasks.
5. Schedule time to unwind
There’s a lot of learning and practice involved in keeping your web dev skills up to scratch. Scheduling time to relax away from the computer gives your brain time to process (and store) what you’ve done and read. Downtime can help you be more productive — it staves off burnout and fatigue, which in turn helps to keep your work on time and of high quality.
Another soft skill that can have a knock-on effect on your web dev skills is communication. Being able to effectively communicate with your peers, your boss, your clients, etcetera, is crucial. You need to be able to understand requirements, the ideas of others, and share any issue or input you have. Plus, web development includes designing online experiences that effectively communicate meaning to users.
Look for opportunities to learn… and to teach
7. Keep up to date with the industry
Programming and the tech industry are constantly evolving. By extension, so too is the web development market. Coding requirements, supporting hardware, and design preferences are subject to ongoing change. So, a key part of finely tuning your web dev skills is keeping up with the evolving preferences you’ll need to cater to.
Part of the ever-changing nature of tech means that programmers and developers in any area need to keep a learning mindset. You need to be open to learning new things — and actively looking to continually train and add to your skill base.
Studying different coding styles, for example, can help you improve the way you structure your code, help you read the code of others, and give you a new way of looking at problems.
9. Learn from experienced web developers
Learning from experienced developers is a great way to fine-tune your web dev skills. They have tried and tested different methods and approaches. They’re successful in a web development career — and so they have insight that can help you improve in the field too.
10. Teach others what you know
Teaching is a great way to solidify your own understanding of your web dev skills. It requires you to be able to explain how to do things in a simple way. It grants a new perspective on your skills — and helps you to raise new questions that you hadn’t seen earlier.
There are many avenues to sharing your skills with others. You could start a blog and fill it with tutorials and your experienced opinions. You could mentor a colleague. You could also take to social media and answer questions on sites like Stack Overflow, Reddit and Quora (for instance).
Fine-tune your web dev skills
Fine-tuning your web dev skills boils down, in essence, to constant practice and a mindset open to learning.
As long as you continue to fuel your passion for web development and seek out new challenges, you’re on your way to keeping your skills well-oiled and up-to-date.
10 things a horrible developer would do
How do you deal with another developer’s bad code?