As a continually growing field, web development is home to an endless array of evolving technologies, languages, and methodologies. From frontend design making way for beautiful and user-friendly websites to backend development and administration for creating powerful and efficient websites, each step holds the potential to be a joyride, allowing the developer the creative freedom to entice its users with mesmerizing designs and powerful functionality.
Getting started with Web Development can prove to be quite a daunting task, mostly due to the vastness of the field. Web Development is composed of many technologies, tech stacks, and languages. Choosing the best option can sometimes take time, especially for a beginner.
To help you save time and make the right decision, we will go through a handful of the best languages for web development. Before jumping into the plethora of languages and tech stacks:
- Remember that the best strategy is to start small and not over-complicate things for yourself.
- Pick a single language that aligns with your needs and interests and focus on that.
- Make projects related to real-world problems, which will ultimately help you to better understand the underlying concepts and become a better developer.
Now, let us look at the best languages for web development and why you should choose them to start your Web Development journey.
HTML & CSS
HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are not necessarily programming languages but markup languages. Markup Languages are mostly used for organizing and styling elements (on a webpage in this context).
HTML determines what the structure of a web page or app will be. It allows us to design a webpage, like adding tables, lists, buttons, hyperlinks, videos, and so much more to our webpage.
CSS determines how the overall style of the webpage will look like. It stylizes the webpage generated using HTML with colors, layouts, fancy animations, and other stylistic aspects. Other than that, it also handles the webpage layout based on the type of device the webpage is loaded in. CSS is a must when creating beautiful and iconic website designs.
The best option to start your Web Development journey is by starting with HTML and CSS. As previously mentioned, one of the main reasons is that both languages are the core of Web Development. Learning the core concepts of HTML and CSS is essential to create unique, functional, and eye-catching websites. It will not only make it easy for you to learn advanced concepts later but many frameworks, libraries, and other frontend tools require you to have a basic or intermediate understanding of both HTML and CSS.
Stick to HTML best practices, like using correct semantic tags and DRY (do not repeat yourself) methodologies.
Additionally, while CSS is not hard to learn, it takes time and practice to become a master. A little bit of CSS goes a long way to add beauty to your HTML page. The next step is bringing it all to life with JavaScript.
JavaScript
After learning the basics of HTML and CSS and applying them to see where you stand, the next logical step is to learn JavaScript (JS). JS, alongside HTML and CSS, is also one of the most important elements of any webpage. Statistics show that more than 65% of developers use JS as their primary programming language, which easily makes JavaScript one of the best languages for web development.
While we can use HTML and CSS to create beautiful sites and pages, we still need a final ingredient to bring it all together. This is where JavaScript comes in. With the help of JavaScript, we can program the behavior of a site, what it does and how it does it. In short, JavaScript is necessary to create an interactive and responsive web application or page.
In addition, many third-party frontend libraries and frameworks are based on JavaScript, making it essential to learn JavaScript. Some of these libraries and frameworks include:
- React.js – Frontend library based on JS
- Vue.js – Frontend framework based on JS
- Node.js – Backend JS runtime environment
- JQuery – Library for Handling HTML document manipulation
Interested? Check out some of the best ways to learn JavaScript.
Python
Python has also gained quite a lot of popularity in web development over the past few years. When it comes to frontend interactivity, Python is just as powerful as JavaScript.
One of the main advantages of choosing Python for web development is that the learning curve is not as steep compared to other options. Couple it with a rich ecosystem and numerous libraries backed by the community, and it seems like the ideal option for someone looking to deploy a web product in a small amount of time.
In terms of productivity, easier syntax and ease of learning make Python can become a key element for reducing the estimated development by a lot, solely due to how simple it may seem compared to other options. Being fast does not mean the end product will be of lesser quality. Efficient and powerful web applications and sites using Python can easily be created using many frameworks and libraries.
Some of the most popular frameworks and libraries for Python Web Development are as follows:
- Flask – Minimalistic, micro web framework
- Django – Open source, web development framework
- Turbogears – Web framework with several WSGI components
Looking to get into Python? Check out Python Web Development Tutorials by RealPython.
PHP
Despite being older compared to other options, PHP is still widely used in many systems and sites, including corporate and commercial. According to W3Techs, 77.5% of websites still use PHP for server-side programming.
As a backend language, PHP is widely used to control the functionality of how to process data on the server side, communicate back and forth from a database, and other server-side functionalities.
One of the reasons it is still widely used is that it is necessary for working with CMS (Content Management Systems) like WordPress, a very popular CMS used extensively on the web today, used to create tons of websites, blogs, and web apps.
Despite being relatively easy to learn PHP, it isn’t always easy to build complex projects. One of PHP’s major complaints is that it becomes difficult to maintain over time. Despite that, it is a popular language with plenty of use cases. Other recent updates to PHP (v7 and v8) have massively improved its overall performance, security, error handling, and other crucial aspects.
Some popular PHP frameworks are as follows:
- Laravel – Robust and Easy to Understand Web framework
- CodeIgniter –Rapid Development Web framework
- Symfony – High-Performance Web Application framework with Reusable Component Libraries
Ruby
Like Python and JavaScript, Ruby has also gained a large following for building webpages and applications. Its reasons for popularity can be traced back to the objectives that were kept in mind while designing the language. Like Python, it is also a general-purpose language supporting multiple programming paradigms. Other than that, productivity and simplicity are heavily emphasized, resulting in a simpler syntax than other options.
In the context of Web Development, Ruby supports Ruby on Rails, a server-side web application framework. It provides out-of-the-box web development support and default structures for web pages, services, and databases.
Because Ruby’s syntax is simple and easy to comprehend, it has become a wide choice of beginners and startups to push their product quickly, ensuring that the product is effective and efficient, not just fast.
Interested in learning more about Ruby? Learn Ruby Online.
Conclusion
In this post, we have discussed the potential best languages for web development, why they are so and why you should choose them.
While thinking about where to start your Web Development journey, you may realize that there are many options to choose from, which can sometimes be confusing. Whatever path you have decided to take, as previously discussed, it is essential to start small. Focus on small steps at a time in the beginning. That way, you will learn at a much faster pace.
Deciding whether you should stick to a specific language should be more than just intuition-based. Create some projects, work with the language, try out different frameworks and libraries, and only then decide whether the language suits you. Creating projects is one of the best ways to learn and lets you get the hang of things like GitHub and Text Editors like VS Code, Atom, and Sublime.
Always be on the lookout to learn more. In this technology-dominated era, things move at an extreme pace, trends change, and frameworks come and go quickly. It is always a good practice to keep yourself updated with the latest tech trends and analyze how the tech market is doing and what will be in demand in the future.
You must maintain a calm, focused attitude towards your end goal, be patient, create consistent, productive habits, always be on the lookout to learn something, and share the knowledge you have gained with your peers.
Overall, how this journey will continue is entirely up to you, but good habits and a consistent and curious attitude will prove to be one of the most important aspects in the long run.
