Assignment 15

One of my key takeaways from working with web development environments and tools is the interconnectivity of all your tools. You are never just using one language or one tool. You are combining several different tools to create a fully functioning website. It all starts with purchasing a domain name from a DNS Provider. Then you need to point your A tables at the correct IP where you are hosting your web server which in my case was the GitHub Pages associated IPs. I hadn’t even started writing any code from the website yet, and I needed two separate services to work together. Then, we get to the actual programming, combining three separate programming languages to get a clean website. That is just the beginning because that will only help you with standard websites. If you want to include more features, you need to tap into Javascript libraries like jQuery, Highcharts, etc. This allows you to add additional functionality to your website and layers of complexity to web development, where you are making several different libraries work together to create your end product. That is only scratching the surface since there are whole front-end frameworks such as Bootstrap that give you functionality that combines HTML/CSS/JS to let you create sleek and uniform websites and provide a lot of features. One interesting thing I ran into while researching how to improve my website was PHP, which is a programming language that develops dynamic and interactive web pages. I found this cause I was getting sick of manually adding a new dropdown for each page and was seeing if there was any way to automate the process. Then, as I expected, I would have to incorporate additional tools into my website if I wanted additional functionality. I am sure that to become a full-fledged web systems programmer, I will have to become well-versed in a variety of tools and learn about them as they come out.

Lead Full Stack Magento/Adobe Commerce Cloud Developer
This is not a realistic job to expect to get out of college, but I like how this job posting shows what the end game looks like for going down the web development career path and mastering the craft. Asset Marketing Services wants us to have a firm grasp of Adobe Commerce Cloud, PHP, SDLC process, Git, Gitflow, MVC frameworks, Javascript, Javascript Libraries, Database Languages, DevOps, SEO, and many more skills. To become a top earner in web development, we must not only learn but also master a large set of tools and be able to integrate them seamlessly.

Junior Web Developer
This job is way more attainable for the fresh-faced college graduate I will soon be. I have already learned many skills they seek, such as a familiarity with HTML/CSS/JS, from this class. The primary skill I am missing from their list of qualifications is familiarity with WordPress and other CMS systems. However, I believe that with the foundations I established from this class, I can learn what I need about WordPress to attain this position. As anticipated, the expectations for this job are much more fitting to my qualifications. Still, I like seeing the contrast between what starting in the field looks like versus what the expectations are for a veteran. Even with everything I have learned, I still have a long way to go, and in all honesty, that motivates me to keep learning and improving.