Web development is definitely getting easier, but it's still not easy. I spent a lot of my past 4 years doing conversion optimization and testing out different marketing channels. So I was exposed to basic html/css/php/mysql. But that didn't really prepare me for web development.
I'm about 4 months full time into web dev, and there's just so much that goes into developing a web app. And then there's the team component. And then the web app needs to scale. Ruby, Rails, MySQL, MongoDB, Javascript, how to set up the hosting, software design best practices, debugging, etc. If I didn't have a mentor or peers help me through this I seriously don't know long it'd take to figure out all the different pieces and how they fit.
I'm about 4 months full time into web dev, and there's just so much that goes into developing a web app. And then there's the team component. And then the web app needs to scale. Ruby, Rails, MySQL, MongoDB, Javascript, how to set up the hosting, software design best practices, debugging, etc. If I didn't have a mentor or peers help me through this I seriously don't know long it'd take to figure out all the different pieces and how they fit.