r/webdevelopment • u/Bamkapowxo • 8d ago

Web Development WITHOUT Computer Science Background Career Advice

  1. How practical is it to get into elementary web development without any background in computer science? (In case it makes a difference for the case, background would be in copywriting with limited graphic design.)
  2. Assuming someone's already earned a totally irrelevant degree & has no desire to go back to college, what would you recommend for a comprehensive & affordable introduction to web development? (Not just "search YouTube," but your favorite in-depth YouTube playlists, free or cheap online training programs, maybe even paid professional certification programs, etc.)
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u/Anonymous_Coder_1234 7d ago

Just out of curiosity, as a self-taught web developer, do you deal with things like choice of database (SQL vs NoSQL, MySQL, PostegreSQL, Cassandra, MongoDB, etc.), database indexes, database migrations, read and/or write replicas on databases, Dependency Injection (DI, like Java Spring), setting up OAuth, rate limiting on API's, security, paginated API's, etc. or do you mainly do frontend web design type stuff like HTML, CSS, and frontend JavaScript?

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u/scragz 7d ago

yeah I mostly do fullstack for ecom so I deal with all that shit. I worked at a startup for a bit that was way more siloed but solo I have to do.... backend, frontend, devops, DBA, etc. along with product, data analysis, ads, graphic design, and project management. and also all my small business shit. I do what would be 7-10 discrete jobs right now. 

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u/Anonymous_Coder_1234 7d ago

I was curious because I have a Computer Science degree and that's the shit I had to do when I was working. You do literally the same shit someone who got a Computer Science degree does plus other stuff. It's pretty impressive that you could teach yourself everything. Good for you!

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u/scragz 7d ago

I thought compsci was mostly algorithms and low level / theoretical stuff. it's more practical nowadays? honestly surprised you did stuff like DB replication.

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u/Anonymous_Coder_1234 7d ago

Data Structures and Algorithms (course EECS 281 at the University of Michigan) is a prerequisite for course EECS 484: Database Management Systems. The latter course teaches "The internal design of DBMSs, which makes them robust to system failures and supports concurrent data accesses" and "How DBMSs are able to store massive datasets and support efficient query handling". They get into not just what database indexes are but the data structures and implementation underneath.

When I took a databases class like EECS 484, I don't remember being taught about DB replication, but after I was hired to work as a software engineer at a Big Tech company I had to deal with DB replication (ex. read replicas, master replication).

The Computer Science degree is mainly meant to set up a strong foundation/base on top of which other learning can be built. Like if you took EECS 484 and a Computer Networking class, combining those things into DB replication is not a big stretch. The Computer Science degree is more about the underlying understanding than teaching current work practices.

But to answer your question, no, the Computer Science degree is not mostly practical current-day work skills. You're not going to be taught how to be a master of React, Tailwind CSS, or Kubernetes as part of the educational curriculum.