Hosting

Back with another “stuff they don’t teach you in school” post. This one covers a basic concept: website hosting. Not a single class at ACC discussed hosting a website beyond using shared hosting for simple sites. My guess is that they focused on training us for jobs, assuming we'd learn about hosting on the job or that someone else would handle it.

The problem is the current tech job market. There are so many of us looking for work that even entry-level positions labeled "Junior Web Developer" often require three years of experience, knowledge of Docker and Kubernetes, and familiarity with GCP, AWS, Azure, and more. So, not having discussed serious web hosting in school makes me feel behind in a critical area.

If my talk about hosting sounds inexperienced or lacking in industry standards, you're correct. And I say that even after learning how to self-host on an Ubuntu server. If you've read my earlier posts, you know I decided self-hosting wasn't for me at this time. The threats are numerous, and services with experienced professionals are better equipped to handle them. I learned a lot from the experience and feel confident I could self-host if necessary, but I don't like the constant apprehension of managing a website's security.

The real issue is that hosting can be intimidating. AWS, GCP, Vercel, DigitalOcean—the list goes on. The choices are overwhelming, and horror stories about unexpected charges can be scary. Overall, hosting is a daunting challenge for new developers, making it easy to stick to static sites and shared hosting options. But at some point, I have to "grow up."

I'm going to jump in; it's all I can do. I'm starting by trying out different services one at a time. I'll create a free account on each, if available, and host a project. This aligns with my learning roadmap, which I'll share in the next post. I need to work on projects to build my portfolio, so I'll host each one in a different location to get a feel for the options. Hosting one project won't make me an expert, but I have to start somewhere, right? I started two days ago with Vercel, creating a "Hobby" account. I quickly discovered they don't support SQLite, but that’s no big deal; I was just experimenting with SQLite in production (one of the new "hot" trends). I have experience with MySQL and can pick up Vercel Postgres if needed. Databases do NOT intimidate me.

So, here we go. I'm making a roadmap and sticking to it. The map has a little fork, but I'll explain that in the next post.

Posted on: 2024-08-02 23:34:57.449643