Full-Stack Web Development Prerequisites

Full stack web development is a collection of computer programming skills that allow developers to build a web application's client-facing and server-side elements. These skills represent a complete coding education since both sides of the application need to be built for it to function. You might worry that full stack web development will take a lot of work to learn. This guide will help you understand the best methods for learning full stack web development and what you should study first to make the learning process easier. This way, you’ll be successful however you choose to apply your new skills. 

What is Full Stack Web Development?

Full stack web development is the name given to a process of web development that handles the programming and coding of front end (user-facing interactive elements of a web application) and back end (server-side infrastructure that handles issues like databases and is hidden from users). It represents the most complete kind of web development, since both front end and back end development infrastructure is required for web applications to run properly. Many different combinations of programming languages are used in the process of full stack web development and Full Stack Web Developers often specialize in specific sets of programming languages.

Some of the most commonly used full stack web development languages include HTML/CSS, JavaScript, SQL, Python, and Ruby on Rails. This list is far from exhaustive, but it is a good place to start considering your path to learning full stack web development. JavaScript, in particular, is an important language for Full Stack Developers to learn because it is versatile enough to handle all of the elements of full stack development, with programming frameworks that allow it to handle the server-side back end functions of a webpage. While there is no set path that a Full Stack Developer must follow in terms of learning how to code, learning a variety of programming languages will be a requirement.

Read more about what full stack web development is and why you should learn it. 

What Can You Do with Full Stack Web Development?

Full stack web development is a beneficial skill to have because it teaches you every element of the technical side of running a webpage or application. You will learn to use languages like HTML/CSS and JavaScript to create stunning, visually evocative web pages. You’ll learn back end languages or frameworks, like Python or the MERN stack, to build the server-side infrastructure that allows webpages to function. Thus, learning full stack web development will teach you how to find work building any aspect of a web application or system. It will set you up for future success in fields adjacent to these programming languages, like data science, cybersecurity, or machine learning. With Full Stack Web Developers being in high demand, learning these skills is a great way to break into a high-paying, diverse career field.

For students not looking to pivot to a new career, learning full stack web development is an ideal way to begin building your own web presence. Whether you are starting an advocacy organization, building a small business, launching a new product idea, hoping to create vibrant personal projects, or just starting a freelancing career, learning full stack web development will let you take care of every aspect of the web development process. The internet offers various creative and professional opportunities for you to take advantage of. Learning how to handle every step of the development process is an ideal way to ensure that the digital presence you are building works the way you want it to work.

Is Full Stack Web Development Easy to Learn?

The difficulty of learning full stack web development will mostly depend on how many skills you need to learn to complete your education. Suppose you have a background in front end web development and want to learn Python to complement this. In that case, it won’t be incredibly challenging. If you’ve never coded before but you know you want to learn to build webpages, it will be more challenging, simply because you’ll need to learn more skills.

What to Know Before Learning Full Stack Web Development

Before you start learning full stack web development, you’ll want to learn the basics of computer programming and understand what the job entails, since it can be a bit overwhelming to jump headlong into an incredibly coding-heavy profession. Then, you’ll want to learn the basics of web development programming before deciding on the next steps for learning specific programming languages and frameworks.

Computer Programming Generally

It is important for new students to understand exactly what goes into programming and computer science. Working as a programmer will involve a lot of technical skills and learning several different programming languages, each with their own unique grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. It can also be a somewhat tedious process as you will need to constantly be checking over code, testing it, and searching for bugs and errors if it doesn’t work properly. It is a rewarding experience for students who enjoy this kind of technical building process, but it isn’t the field for everyone.

To get a general overview of the coding process for webpages, check out Noble’s free Intro to Web Development seminar to learn more about the basic tasks of a Web Developer.

Basics of Web Development

While there are several different languages that a Full Stack Web Developer can learn, it is unavoidable that they learn HTML/CSS and JavaScript. These are the most commonly used programming languages for building the front end of a web application and many other programming languages and frameworks are built on top of them. Learning these programming languages will be essential for your future training as a full stack developer, so it will be important to ensure that you have these skills down before moving on to more advanced languages.

Noble Desktop offers accelerated training in HTML/CSS and JavaScript for Front End and many of their advanced web development career classes teach these languages.

Advanced Programming Skills

Once you are familiar with JavaScript and HTML/CSS, you’ll want to start considering what additional programming languages you want to learn to master full stack development. In this case, you can take a few different routes, and while you may eventually learn all of these languages, you’ll need to learn a few to start building your work. You can learn programming languages like Python and SQL to build server-side infrastructure or programming frameworks like JavaScript’s MERN stack. These are the advanced languages you’ll use to build more complex functionalities into your web applications.

Key Insights

• Full stack web development is the process of building both the front end client-facing elements of a web application and the back end server and database-related elements of that application.
• Since full stack web development involves the interplay between many different skills, the challenges of learning the skills will mostly depend on whether you have significant programming experience and only need a bit of training or if you have zero coding experience and need to learn everything from scratch.
• Once you understand the basics of coding, you’ll need to learn HTML/CSS and JavaScript. From there, you’ll want to research various programming languages to decide what professional path you want to take.
• No matter what level of training you need to become a full stack development professional, Noble Desktop has a comprehensive training program, available in-person or online, built to suit your needs.

Learn Full Stack Web Development with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

Becoming a full stack developer will take a decent amount of time and energy since it will require students to learn many different programming languages. While these languages all complement one another and learning one will make learning another easier, students will still need to spend a decent amount of time training as programmers. One of the best ways to learn a complex set of new skills is by enrolling in a professional training program, such as those offered by Noble Desktop. In these classes, professional instructors will provide students with guided instruction and give them hands-on experience in all aspects of full stack development. These classes are available in-person and live online classrooms, and regardless of the delivery method of the course, class sizes will remain small. Students will be able to work directly with their instructors. Noble also offers a free retake option for all of its courses, meaning that after you’ve completed a seminar, you can retake that course for additional training anytime in a calendar year.

Noble’s most comprehensive training option is its Full Stack Web Development Certificate program is its comprehensive training option. This course is designed with programming novices in mind, meaning you don’t have to have any programming background to succeed in this course. Students will learn how to program the front-facing aspects of a webpage using HTML/CSS and JavaScript, and they will receive hands-on experience working with common developer tools like VSC and Git. After this, students will learn the important JavaScript frameworks and libraries like React, Node.js, and Express.js that give JavaScript full stack development capabilities. In addition, every student who enrolls in this course will have the opportunity to take an SQL course, which will teach them the basics of programming functionalities into databases.

Noble also offers a wide array of shorter, more skills-focused bootcamps that will teach students one or more elements of the full stack development process. This training can include narrow career-certificate programs, like the Front End Development Certificate program, which will cover lessons in HTML/CSS and the interactive elements of JavaScript, and the Python Developer Certificate program, which teaches students how to use the Python programming language to build back end server and database infrastructure. 

These classes are ideal ways to learn significant elements of the full stack development process, though students should know that some of these courses have requirements. For example, Noble’s JavaScript Development Certificate program is a great way to learn full stack web development skills using JavaScript, but it will require students to know HTML/CSS to enroll. Students looking for a slightly more accelerated lesson that is still beginner-friendly may want to consider enrolling in Noble’s Software Engineering Certificate program, which provides training in all of the elements of full stack web development and compliments that training with lessons in Python so that developers can utilize back end languages other than JavaScript frameworks.

Regardless of your goals or prior experience levels, Noble Desktop is here to assist you with a full stack web development class built to suit your needs.