How to practice Web Development (Looking for sources, books, website with exercises, quizzes and etc)?

Hi Roman,

The best way to practice, unfortunately, IS to build a website. You don't have to necessarily publish it to practice; you can just keep the files on your computer and preview them (to simply practice certain techniques), but going through the process of creating a website from step one (registering a domain name, purchasing hosting, etc.) will help you figure out the steps that you will need to take to work with a client as well as see how your work looks on a variety of platforms.

For my business, I have a dev URL that I use for clients when needed and, in between clients, for my own practice. If you're afraid of making public your practice, then you can buy a dummy URL like mine and just use that to practice on. You can then add meta tags with noindex to ensure that your website doesn't show up on SERPs. This information is in the SEO basics course here on Treehouse.

You don't need any fancy coding to get started. You can simply use HTML (structure) and CSS (appearance) to create a static website. Since you're asking for some resources, W3Schools.com is an excellent place to start as it provides both tutorials and quizzes. You can even earn certificates through them. In terms of books, I'd recommend just hitting up Amazon and doing a search for HTML or CSS, and get whatever is best reviewed and MOST CURRENT (the problem with purchasing books is that they can become outdated pretty quickly). Then I'd come back here to Treehouse to further develop your skills because it really does a good job of going in-depth and showing you some great techniques.

If you're looking for a subject for your website, it can be as simple as thinking up some sort of small business, like a restaurant. If you're a total beginner, I'd start with just a one-page website, very simple. Just imagine what sort of information you would include on your website if you were a restaurant owner. What message would you want to send to your customers? How would you draw them in? With images? Copy? How would you present your menu? etc. Then use W3Schools.com (or whichever resources you choose) to figure out how you could make that happen.

Or, if you have an artist friend (or are an artist yourself), a great idea for a subject is to build them a website because they usually have a good amount of specific content like an About page, a gallery, etc.

Ultimately, what it comes down to is your motivation for entering into the website development field. Do you want to build websites professionally? If so, you will not get clients without a portfolio. So, you're basically stuck having to eventually build, at least, one non-paid website. Try to not think about it as a waste of time, but as a great learning opportunity that is completely under your control. Once you get one website under your belt, you may be able to use that to land your first paid job, or, at the very least, another website to work on (for example, a friend's, a local business', etc.).

I hope that my answer addresses your question. If you feel that it's offers some insight, please consider marking it as the Best Answer! :) If not, let me know if there's anything else I can help you with.

Good luck!

M.