You can already get a pretty long way building a website using just HTML & CSS. Or perhaps instead using the myriad blogging engines and 'build a website' services that exist. So why bother with Ruby?
The truth is, being a web developer is not really about HTML and CSS. Those are only a small part of the very broad range of skills and languages that a good developer needs to have. Plus, only a proportion of web development actually happens on the web. For the most part, developers work with code in 'development environments' on their local machines; very far from all the bells and whistles.
Being a web developer is about leveraging a whole range of technologies and languages, often at quite low levels and being confident to dive in and learn something new - and potentially complicated - even if it's initially bewildering.
And that's what this project is for: to give you a peek under the hood and hopefully - depending on your experience - challenge you to get a bit out of your depth.
So, let's begin.
There are no intentional tricks or traps in this guide. If you follow the instructions correctly, you should finish with a fully-working website that can be deployed to the world. If you get stuck, read what to do if you get stuck. There are only two rules:
- Type every line of code yourself. While it's tempting to copy and paste code from this guide, you won't learn anything if you do.
- You don't need to understand everything. Of course, 'understanding' is a vital part of being a developer; but so is managing how much you need to know. It isn't possible to understand everything.
Getting stuck sucks. Especially when you're just getting started and things don't work!
But don't worry - getting stuck is an inevitable part of being a developer and getting unstuck is a critical skill. If you are not getting the results you expect, try the following steps:
React
Typescript
Django
Laravel
Facebook
Microsoft
Google
Alibaba
D3
Tencent