15 Myths & Misconceptions In Web Developement

so web development is a very vast field with a lot of myths and misconceptions and in this video I just want to talk about and even debunk some of the most common myths when it comes to web development now I know a lot of you guys are developers so you might already know a lot of the stuff but this is more for beginners who are just starting out learning to code and seeing a lot of this stuff and seeing things that kind of conflict with one another and just having questions about what's true and what isn't now some of these can be debatable my goal isn't to claim absolute Authority on what's true or not most of us usually go off of our own experiences but I did do a bunch of research as well so it's not just my experience and my goal is just to provoke thought encourage a more nuanced understanding and just provide Clarity based on both P personal experience and thorough research so let's jump in and let's take a look at some of the common myths or misconceptions when it comes to web development [Music] all right so getting right into it myth number one is that once you build a website or web app that's it you're done forever and many people think that building a website or any software project is kind of a one-time thing which in most cases is objectively not the case so launching your site is just the beginning and a website is basically a digital representation of your business and as your business grows and evolves so should your website and this can pertain to different things like design fun functionality content security and in many cases you need ongoing maintenance and this is a good thing for web developers especially Freelancers because there's always work to be done and you can go back to the client and offer to update their website when I was freelancing I would always offer a maintenance plan to my clients and would include things like regular updates adding content backups Security checks and so on and this is a great way to keep a steady St stream of income coming in so myth number two is that you need to learn everything and technologies that are used for web development are always changing and evolving so it's literally impossible to know everything and I actually recently did a video on this um probably about two months ago where I talk about specialization and that's what I suggest you pick a stack you pick a group of Technologies specialize in that and that'll make you more valuable to employers and clients so you don't need to learn everything but you need to figure out what you do need to learn and that can actually be pretty tricky in itself so myth number three is that you need a traditional college education and degree while a degree in computer science or a related field can be very beneficial I'm definitely not saying it's not I'm not saying it's a waste of time or anything like that it just isn't a strict requirement in many cases to become a web developer and many successful developers including myself have built their careers through alternative paths such as self learning online courses boot camps or just practical experience and the tech industry values traditional education but it also values skills portfolios and just practical experience many times over traditional education and being able to demonstrate your ability to build and maintain websites and applications through a strong portfolio can be just as effective if not more so and there are of course companies that do have that strict line where you do have to have a degree but I feel like uh or I know that those that's becoming less common as time goes on so myth number four is that web development is easy and I've seen other types of programmers kind of look down on web development and say it's not true software development which I think is ridiculous of course there are other roles that are more complex when getting into you know lower level code but webdev is still a complex field that requires a lot of Knowledge and Skills in fact I'd go as far as to say that you need to learn more when it comes to web development because there's so many tools and Frameworks and they're constantly changing so this is especially true for for full stack developers in addition to just you know HTML CSS JavaScript you have front-end Frameworks and tools you have backend languages python Ruby no. JS PHP you also need to to know how to manage databases Version Control other build tools you need to know how to optimize your code and perform uh for performance and for security you need to know how to test code and fix bugs so you need to know a lot of the the same things that any other software developer needs to know and software development in general is is difficult unless you're some kind of Genius so myth number five is that front end and back end are are totally separate while they are two distinct areas of web development they're not entirely separate the two sides of web development work very closely together to create a seamless and functional web experience even if you're creating an app with a completely separate front end and backend you need to understand a lot of the same stuff how rest apis work how HTTP requests work you need to understand how to pass data um from the front end and back end and vice versa sessions cookies everything is is very intertwined I also think that SSR server side rendering is kind of the future of web Frameworks Like nextjs Remix spell kit n Astro you can build full stack applications with a single code base and I actually just updated my nextjs course where we ditched the API routes and did everything within server components and actions so that line between front end and back end is is really getting blurrier and blurrier also if you work with you know PHP and and tools like WordPress you're doing both front-end and backend development you're creating themes and plugins which require both front and backend knowledge so myth number six is that web development is dead and AI will replace web developers and it's true that AI is getting better and better and it's definitely unknown and debatable as to how much that's going to affect developers and affect jobs I'm definitely not saying there won't be an effect already is however this isn't exclusive to to software development you can pretty much say that AI threatens just about any job type web development is um it's a very creative field and it requires a lot of problem solving skills and AI can help with that but it's not just about writing code it's about understanding the needs of the client and the end user and just creating a solution that meets those needs and AI can't do better uh than humans at understanding human emotion and I don't know what's in store for the future I nobody does but you in my opinion you can't base all of your career decisions on what may or may not happen you have to focus on what you can do now and what you enjoy doing also AI provides great tools to help you become a better developer so that that's just what I choose to focus on and that's what I would recommend so myth number seven is web development is just about writing code and while code cing is a critical component it's it's part of a broader process that includes aspects of design planning user experience obviously there's different roles in web development front-end devs need to understand design principles user experience accessibility backend devs need to understand databases service side logic security and collaboration and communication are also key skills in web development especially these days you need to be able to work with designers project managers work with clients if you you know you're freelancing and you're dealing face Toof face with clients there's a huge social aspect to web development that many people don't realize so just because you're good at writing code doesn't automatically mean that you're going to be super successful so myth number eight is that WordPress developers are not real developers and I've seen people say this before that you know if if you work with WordPress or or any CMS for that matter you're not a real developer and I've worked with a lot of Wordpress devs back in the day and some of them were some of the most talented people that I've ever worked with and could create just about anything in record time and most professional WordPress developers they know PHP JavaScript HTML CSS SQL they know how to create custom themes and plugins they know how to optimize a site for performance and security they know how to work with databases and apis they know how to deploy a site to a server and maintain it it they know how to test their code fix bugs so they really know the inside and out of a website and they're real developers and sure you might have some beginners that just install themes and plugins but if they keep working with WordPress they're they're eventually going to need to learn how to create those custom themes and plugins otherwise they're not going to be able to make a living and that's pretty much where I started I started out just being one of those people that just installs themes and plugins but eventually I I learned to code I learned to customize and you know build things that my clients needed and then it led me down the path to like JavaScript and node.js and and you know full stack development so uh I definitely wouldn't say that WordPress developers are not real developers so myth number nine is that you need a fancy design I think a lot of people think to you know to to have a a website or application that's successful it needs to be you know this this fantastic design design while visually appealing designs they can enhance user experience but it doesn't even come close to being the most important thing in a successful website a website needs to be functional easy to use content uh responsive consistent and accessible and it needs to load quickly it needs to be optimized for search engines all of these things are more important than a pretty design and you can have the most beautiful website in the world but if it doesn't work properly your users are going to leave and you can have the ugliest website in the world but if it works well users will stay if you look at some of the most popular websites like Google Craigslist stack Overflow Reddit uh Wikipedia these are not very visually appealing right nothing really jumps out you don't say wow this looks great but they're some of the most successful websites in the world because they're functional and they're easy to use and user experience is is more important than design so although good you know really fancy designs they can in some ways enhance user experience and they can attract people initially to to your website but never give up functionality for design so some people think that the more features a website has the better it is but that's not really true in fact in many cases it's the opposite a website should only have the features that are necessary to meet the needs of the client and the end user and adding unnecessary features can really make a website bloated and and slow as well as just confuse the user so you should focus on creating a website that's simple intuitive and easy to use and this will make the user experience much better and and keep people coming back and you can always add more features later as you know the needs of the the client and the enduser change so myth number 11 you need a team to build a successful website and I don't think this is true I think that this myth can make aspiring solo uh entrepreneurs or small business owners feel like they lack the resources to build highquality sites on their own I'll be realistic and say that a single person couldn't build Google and maintain it you know on their own for years and have the same type of success however a lot of those platforms did start with a single person or a small team and I'd say that you can start anything by yourself you just need to be able to expand as the project scales and there's also many types of projects that you can run on your own forever anything from a simple blog to a powerful SAS or e-commerce company especially with all all the tools that are available from Frameworks to no code tools it's definitely possible the next myth is that not all websites need to be responsive and I've been doing this for a while and I I do remember when having a mobile version of a website was kind of an add-on now it's a requirement it has been for years mobile usage is increasing every year and it's not going to stop so you need to make sure that your website are responsive that they look good on all devices and this isn't this is not just for use experience but also for SEO Google ranks mobile friendly websites higher in search results and CSS Frameworks like tailwind and bootstrap they make it really easy to create responsive websites even if you're not great with CSS and design and in my opinion the only time you you don't need to worry about responsiveness is if you're building like an internal tool that's only going to be used on desktops by certain employees or even just by yourself then it's okay but if it's a public facing site and you're getting new users then you're definitely going to want it to be responsive so myth number 13 a website needs to be perfect before launching and this is something that I've seen over and over and have even done myself you don't want to launch a project until it's 100% complete but the truth is a website is never complete and there's always something that can be improved so you should launch your website as soon as it's functional and then iterate on it you can always add new features and improve the design and and fix bugs after the launch and I'm not saying launch a site that's you know just full of errors but if everything seems to be working then launch it if then problems arise then you address it and in fact I think it's better to launch early and get feedback from users so that you can make improvements based on that feedback that's something called an MVP or a minimum viable prod prod you launch the smallest version of your product that's still functional and then build it build on it based on that user feedback and this is a much better approach than trying to build the perfect website before launching because you're never going to end up launching so myth 14 SEO is just about keywords SEO is a very complex field that involves much more than just keywords keywords are important you know they're they're just one piece of the puzzle though SEO also involves technical aspects such as site speed mobile friendliness security it also involves user experience content quality and backlinks and SEO is always changing and evolving so it's important to stay up to date with the latest trends and best practices there's a lot of tools that you can use you know go uh Google analytics Google search console sem Rush Etc and you can also hire an SEO expert to help with your websites SEO and I'd say another misconception is that SEO is a one-time thing it's it's not it's an ongoing process that requires regular monitoring and updates and then the last myth is that you need to use the latest Technologies the choice of Technologies should be based on the specific needs of the project older stable Technologies can be just as effective if they meet the requirements and they're well supported and I'd also say that prioritizing um stable proven Technologies and Frameworks can be more beneficial in terms of long-term maintenance and compatibility and I see a lot of people get worked up because the framework version they're using is is one or two versions behind if it works it works and you can always update it later and I've seen people rewrite their entire project because they were using an older version of a framework and that's just a waste of time and money in many cases you only need to update if there's a security issue or a feature that you need in in the new version all right so those are the 15 myths that I have for you of course of course uh my own opinions and experience influence everything I've said here but I think that these are pretty common myths and I've seen these you know over and over Through The Years hopefully you found this video useful and hopefully it cleared up some misconceptions especially for beginners and if you have any other myths or you have any opinion on any of these then let us know in the comments