6 Skills That Every Front – End Developer Should Master
A visually attractive website that looks user-friendly is built through front- end development. It creates a highly interactive and responsive website for users. It is an extensive process that converts the idea and data into interactive Web Pages to create a user-friendly interface.
Front end development is becoming the most preferred career options for students. Those want to become front end developer have to master the skills of coding. Known as the client side development process, front – end development involves a complete set of basic programming languages and skills used to create interactive websites.
In this fast evolving era of web development, a front end developer has to be sure about the basics and understanding of programming languages. In addition, the different resolutions and screen sizes available to the users also makes it important for a front- end developer to have strong web development skills. They have to make sure that the website they have built should respond correctly on different devices, browsers and operating systems.
So, we have listed down six essential skills that every front – end developer should master. Let’s understand them in detail:
Command over programming languages
There are some programming languages which are known as the building blocks of coding such as HTML & CSS. These two are extremely important for a front- end developer to master as they help in formatting the text and adding new elements. They help in building the basic website structure.
The other essential programming languages are Javascript & jQuery. JavaScript helps in adding more interactive functions and features to the website. Companies such as Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest majorly use JavaScript to make interactive and user - friendly webpages. To make JavaScript more useful, a library of plugins and extensions are used, popularly known as jQuery. It lets the front- end developer to make the website look visually attractive and functionally outstanding.
Understanding the frameworks
Web frameworks are known for the convenience and saving time for front- end developers. The two important frameworks that every programmer should master are JavaScript frameworks and Front end frameworks.
JavaScript frameworks offer different types of the framework as per the function. These include AngularJS, Backbone, Ember and ReactJS to offer a ready-made - structure that minimizes the coding effort of programmer from the scratch.
On the other hand, the most popular front end framework is Bootstrap that offers the jumpstart to every programmer required for faster coding.
Adaptability and versatility
Nowadays, customers have different size of devices to explore websites. Some prefer opening websites on their computer screen whereas some find it easier on their mobile phone or tablet. In this era of technology, learning to create a responsive design is essential. It should adapt to any screen size or resolution without affecting the visual appearance of the webpage.
Working on Cross browser development
Cross-browser development simply means creating a website that is compatible with different browsers out there. Every browser has a different ability to interpret codes of a website. Thus, it is pretty much expected that it cannot open correctly in every browser.
Modern browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc have differences in working behind the scenes. However, it becomes essential to show the skills of developing a cross-browser webpage to offer a consistent design experience to the users.
CMS and E-commerce platforms
CMS – technically known as the Content Management System is used to create E-commerce websites. The most in-demand CMSs in the industry are Wordpress, Magento, Drupal and Joomla. While developing E-commerce websites, it becomes quite difficult for a front end developer to manage the webpages differently. Thus, CMS is a system that lets the developer create, manage and maintain the website on a centralised interface. There are almost 60- 70% of E-commerce companies that are running on CMS due to the ease in building the website while streamlining the workflow.
Constant testing and bugs fixation
Witnessing bugs in web development is common. Thus, every front- end developer should be aware of the process of testing and debugging. There are two types of testing – Unit testing and UI testing. Unit testing is a specific method of checking the blocks of source code individually. Whereas, UI testing is used to check the behaviour of the website that determines how it will respond to the users.
After completing the testing process, front- end developers have to deal with the bugs. These are errors that come after launching the site and it is vital for the developer to detect them properly and fix them correctly for seamless user experience.
