How to become a web developer?

There's a HECK of a lot to learn to be able to do web development effectively. Just to be ABLE to do it, you have to learn:













 To do it EFFECTIVELY, you've got a lot more to learn:
To do it WELL, there's even more:
I think that skipping PHP and the others and going straight to Rails is a good idea. Maybe. At least if he's talented. But he'll still have to learn a lot of things before he's any good at creating a site. (Don't forget that we found Rails easy to learn because we already knew a lot about web development.) He'll still have to understand HTML and CSS. The Agile Web Development with Rails books is excellent, but it takes a lot to get through. If you're the type who can read a manual to learn how to do something, then it's fine. But if you need to start out with a tutorial, then you'll need to start with a different book. If you do go this route, I'd recommend learning in this order:
If you want to make a living at it, I'd expect it to take at least a year of full-time (self-)education. Everyone learns differently, so it's hard to recommend learning materials. I'll offer some ideas though:

If he just wants to play around, I suppose the order is not as important. Learn things as they interest you. Eventually, you'll find you've learned a ton and enjoyed doing it.

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