You misjudged my post but I worded it pretty poorly. My intention was that you would have read the post and then the very last part where I wrote "the best part about it" was like pouring salt on an open wound.

I was basically saying, as if the above isn't enough... on top of all of that, now you have to deal with a majority of your clients not knowing what is even happening to make their site work because they can't see it. This is a bad thing for both developers and clients because clients can't understand what needs to be done for certain tasks, so they might get scared from certain price quotes or estimated time quotes.

As someone who knows nothing about dentistry I can at least sort of see what's going on to result in an expensive visit. They need to pay for a building, a small staff, a bunch of tools, xray machines and then someone with a steady hand and a good amount of knowledge is directly affecting one of the most important parts of your body.

I'm out in Boston, but ya we did do a bunch of battling in SSSH. I wish I still had my database, not sure why I didn't bother holding onto it... I miss online poker :P

Anyway, I know a few people that have been web developers for a few years at start ups, write good code, stay on top emerging technologies, but don't have any huge love for coding/developing, and enjoy it mostly because they're part of/running a small team and are involved in decisions with the start up. They're making very solid money and really enjoy their jobs as a whole.

I'm sure if you really want to be top notch getting paid 150k+ or w/e a super talented developer can make (obviously depends on where you are located) you need to know everything in Shoe's post, and probably have some people skills, but at my naive understanding it doesn't seem like being a fairly above average developer takes nearly all that much effort. At least that's what I'm hoping, since I'm just getting into it. Then again, a large part of the appeal to this field and my mega ADD brain is the fact that there are so many different things to learn, it keeps it fresh. And I think in the start up environment it'll have some additional challenges/day to day operations that are different enough to add some spice.

I look forward to gaining a mastery of different languages over the years and hopefully don't burn out on it.

Tons of websites use Java. Lots of people do development for the web without ever worrying about CSS -- that's done by graphics designers.

OP, are you an artist-type person?

And this just isn't true. Plenty of people do web development just focusing on the middle tier -- usually web services and never even think about browsers.

Think about some site like OpenTable that provides access to their API through web services.

Sure but the OP specifically said that he wants to eliminate the middle man and not work for a company. He wants to be purely independent.

How can you possibly be independent without knowing everything I written? The answer is really simple, you can't.

Unless you count out sourcing as independence and while I could agree with that in some cases, it really is the exact opposite of independence because you are depending on someone else to do the work for you.

Picking MySQL for a project you start today seems like really horrible advice though.

I'd say it depends on the particular data you're going to store, how the data will be used, the types of relationships that exist between the data, and who will be using it, among other things.

Also, I've found that the most horrible of horrible advice comes in the form of broad, sweeping generalizations that don't consider any factors for particular circumstances.

Im really new to developing web pages, im trying different things out as a hobby. Its a lot of fun and the possibilities are endless. I dont expect to make any money from it but am going to be doing it for fun a lot. It seems to me, that the technical side of web pages is just one thing, you also have to have a good grasp of the graphical side, photoshop and so on, an eye for the graphics if you want to make it in that field. My feeling is that as a web developer youre as much an artist as a programmer. And yeah, dont discourage anyone guys. I think the basics of these things are fairly easy if you make the effort, and you can get started with that. The beauty is you can always improve and add different tools to your arsenal.

I don't know much about going independent, but I would say Web Dev is a super good job. Depends on where you work, so you have to find the right place. I wouldn't leave my job for anything else but thats how they treat me. The skills I learned over the past 7 years weren't that tough to learn, but maybe thats just my opinion. Didn't ask about non-solo opportunity but I thought I'd put my 2 cents in.

I guess he means there's no good reason to chose MySQL over PostgreSQL if you can set up your own stack, but I digress.

Although I think that ShoeLace gave a holy-moly breakdown of the issues you may face or want to learn about in web-building, I would like to point out that there are many many people who are earning money that don't have half the knowledge that he proscribes.

The following describes a true person that I know, and that I am (sort of) friends with. It's hard for me to tell her she has zero business doing web-building since I have my job because of her.

True story: She builds Magento websites for money. I showed her some of the strange stuff I experiment with in CSS and outside of knowing the initials, she has zero clue what CSS is exactly.

She showed me a website she really likes and asked me "Hey, how do you thing they did that?" I press CTR-U and she says: "Woah, what's that?" I just gave her a sidelong look and said that is how you can examine the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. She had no idea that these things are public for all the world to see.

Despite using Magento, she doesn't know what XML is. In her world, creating a layout is opening up Dreamweaver and using drag-and-drop plug-ins or modules, but I doubt she was able to figure out how to plug Dreamweaver into Magento, so she likely used a Magento module to create the site. Considering she doesn't know PHP or anything, I am guessing she was accidentally safe and doesn't know how to hack the core.

So, let's break down her knowledge:

Doesn't know HTML at all!
Doesn't know CSS
Doesn't know SQL or any of the RDBMS
Doesn't know JavaSript
Doesn't know PHP
Doesn't know XML

She is, however, an expert in Adobe Suite (no, really, she is), and she knows how to use an FTP server, and she knows how to tell clients that she is able to build sites, yet somehow, tying all this knowledge together is probably impossible for her.

Other pieces of knowledge from her:

HTML5 is much slower than HTML4 (I doubt she knows what XHTML is) so you shouldn't use it.
A fast server is the only thing you need in order to create a faster site.
In this day and age, you don't need to know how to code since there are so many tools available for you to use.

So, to answer OP's question, you need to be somewhere between my friend and ShoeLace to be a paid programmer. Aim your bullets appropriately.

*****

To be more serious, I want to point out there is a small issue with becoming Mr. All-around, and it is this: All that knowledge isn't going to do much good unless you can use it to hire a team. The reason is that after you learn how to do everything and create an awesome site, you'll find that to meet super demands, you are going to have to charge 70k and you are going to take a very long time to do so. Now compare that to a web-dev company who charges 70k for the same thing you can do and also finish in 8 weeks. So, to compete, you'd need to become the middle man.

There is also another small issue that my friend clearly demonstrates: Clients will always think: "Why do I have to spend so money and wait? Everyone has a website. How hard can this **** really be?" Now, I am thoroughly convinced that the majority of developers who are charging 70k are absolutely worth the money, but try to convince a small company who earns about 5 million / year of this. The only thing they will think is that it doesn't matter and, since everyone has a website, it's really easy, so why pay for expertise when they can get the "same thing" -- defined as a website, not something awesome -- for 5k?

While your expertise may really be worth 70k for a site, the problem is that your only clientele will be large companies, and most of those large companies have an excellent in-house development team, so your knowledge growth ends up becoming a liability. I am being slightly unfair with this assessment, but I would say if you are really interested in the state of web-development, try calling around a bunch of web-dev companies in your area and see how hard it is to find a quality company. I guarantee that after about 50 phone calls, you will have at most, 2 candidates, maybe a 3rd with a very large question mark. I think this happens because the best and the brightest aren't able to compete in the wild.

Yes, Shoe Lace was incredibly helpful at that time.

To be fair, after a year of reading "how do become the best at X, or "look at my super-implementation of XYZ (why the **** do you think that piece of code you just write is any good?)" or "I don't know how to do this complex thing, HALP!.... Wait, what is a variable?" I totally understand why someone would appear surly at beginners. I was, and still am, that guy in said quotes in many ways, but just saying.

I don't see what was wrong with what Shoe Lace wrote, though perhaps there was a slight air of exaggeration to go along with it, but he was saying "Look, just get your ass learning..."

And I'll add that you may want to learn how to do some programming first. Yeah, I know you don't think learning how to count to 10 with a computer is important, but it is.

Bolded made me LOL. You wish, Shoe Lace

(So do I, to be fair)

Being the guy that handles the data behind the scene is a way more stable job, generally pays better, and you deal with fewer clients. IMO that's the way to go if you want to deal with "web development." Actual layouts / CSS / HTML / image stuff means working with people who don't understand the Internet, and my patience runs thin fast with those types.

Just use MariaDB (or Postgres). I'm not a fan of generalizations either but I'd say MariaDB > MySQL for any new project is one I'm more than willing to make.

I think ShoeLace is spot on but I'd read his post as "stuff you need to become a good web developer". The beauty of web development is that you can actually get into it really quickly. Like I said just follow Rails/Django tutorials and you should be able to build decent stuff pretty quickly. Even good enough stuff to charge enough for it to live from it.
After that the work begins 80/20 and all.

I really need to try MariaDB. Having XtraDB available is so huge.