Welcome to Web Development Starter Kit.
Time has passed. Web technologies have evolved and we keep on sharpening them day after day. We're loving it. In the course of time, we've fallen into one strange trap, the curse of knowledge, by dropping behind us an entire new generation of developers who are finding it hard today to follow the trend train.
Today, there are so many people out there looking for somewhere to start learning how to create websites/web apps like normal babies. Instead, they are bashed here, and thereby those who had that chance and seem to forget they were once newbies. All forums and social media groups have become unbearable for all new learners. Their "stupid" questions always irritate "advanced" developers and end up into irrelevant debates or insults. Now they are all afraid of asking questions or even to learn, and thus remain "stupids". It seems we do not allow learning anymore. We want everyone to be an "already-made-knower". Which can't be. Otherwise, we get angry at them for not knowing the little we know.
For example, many of my contemporary developers would feel shy and bad to talk about starting a website using NotePad or even building one from scratch. They say using an FTP client is a shame. Writing your own CSS instead of using bootstrap is counter-business. Hosting on a shared host is lame. If it's not cloud, then it is not. And the list continues. Meanwhile, many businesses are running with all these and many developers are still getting it done with all those so-called outdated techniques and tools. Indeed, the field evolves and new techniques and tooling are usually introduced attempting to ease our tasks, but that does not always obsolete existing ones.
By the way, I received many warnings from fellow developers, of not teaching any outdated techniques in my book, in which condition they would read it. But, let me care for those who are still careful. The world hates heros, thus I write knowing that only a few people can read. I am not bordered, because I know that there is a problem on the table.
One thing I’m very concerned about, as we try to educate the next generation of developers, and, importantly, get more diversity and inclusiveness in that new generation, is what obstacles we’re putting up for people as they try to learn to program. In many ways Stack Overflow’s specific rules for what is permitted and what is not are obstacles, but an even bigger problem is rudeness, snark, or condescension that newcomers often see. - Joel Spolsky, CEO Stack Overflow
There are two main issues with content on the web — the first being the organization and sorting of the information, and the second being the difficulty to determine which piece of information is right. In both cases, new developers are all victims.
A few people tried to solve those problems in various ways. We can mention StackOverflow, quora, or even PHP The Right Way, or PHP-FIG, and so many awesome lists around the globe. But you see, the more you try to make things look better on the web, the more complicated it turns. When you try to organize, you increase the number of resources making it hard to determine which is right. One of the common issues with those resources is that they are not always welcoming to the newcomers.
I want to help with that. If I can open your eyes before you reach there, I would have succeeded in my mission.
I will consider you as a baby who is starting from scratch. I will explain to you how things were done and how they are done today. And most importantly, the reason why you have to do one thing, not the other. I have done my best to avoid jumping steps. So, expect to read a bit more.
