What skills should I learn as a web developer? And how?

Anonymous

I'm currently an expert at HTML/CSS and Photoshop, and I know my way around Javascript, PHP, and XML.

With my current skills, I've had a few office jobs doing routine production work. My jobs have paid well, but they were all contract assignments, as are most of the jobs that agencies pitch me when I search for new jobs. Now I'm nearing the end of my current assignment and finding very little interest in the job market for my skillset. My personal client list is also nearly dried up. I now feel like being a front-end web developer is a dead-end job, and I've received pointers from others confirming this sentiment.

I would like to crash-course a few new technologies so that I can pick up some assignments in the next month and strengthen my skillset. The list of possible things to learn (Flash, Ruby, more PHP, Wordpress, Drupal, jQuery) is somewhat fleshed out, though I'm open to suggestions... the "how to learn" part is more difficult I need to be able to bring myself to competency in a short timeframe, build some working projects, and then offer those skills to new clients and potential employers.

I'm looking for very specific and effective recommendations that I can start using immediately. The more time-specific that it is, the better. Reference manuals and free online tutorials aren't useful at this stage.

Thank you very much in advance.

in Information Technology | 3 answers | respond | email

Years of experience	4-7 years
Industries
Web Design

Alden

Gee. Hmm. Okay, I'd tend to put Ruby pretty high as it's somewhat of a foundational technology which will give you a great deal more versatility as a designer/developer.

That said, the one answer your description leaves out is what you'd like to be doing differently. . . Are you seeking to move into back-end development? Build up a client base who need websites designed by you alone, or just get more job offers doing what you're already doing?

I might be able to give you better suggestions if I had a clearer idea of where you wanted to go.

Cheers, Alden

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Kainne

I don't think you should be looking to broaden your skill sets and spread yourself thin across all of the front end technologies you can think of. HTML and CSS are the easy one's to master. You need to master the core components of frond end technology development and it starts with becoming a strong Javascript developer. Build some passion projects; if technology is your passion.

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epc

You might consider an alternative approach: you know the building blocks, pick up some plumbing. Get to know the various APIs people are writing to (eg: twitter, facebook, Google's GData) and show that you can create custom applications that tie together a client's web site with one or more other sites utilizing the published APIs (another one to consider is PayPal's IPN and Payments APIs).

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