Is web development considered a difficult skill to learn? Why do some people find it challenging?

I can immediately tell from the casual tone of this question that this person is not acquainted with the demands and scope of developing web projects, this is no great crime in itself, but I would ask people to have an open mind, and resist the temptation to dismiss a subject they might not be fully aware of. When we are speaking of ‘Web Development’ we are in fact using an umbrella term, beneath the glitter and apparent novelty of this canopy we can discern that there are many moving parts, and specific skills being employed.

Development of WWW publications involves multiple skills, it is not one discrete skill, we can use this expression to describe the general area, certainly, but this conceals an entire range of skills which the developer must master, and become an adept with:

Overall knowledge of the World Wide Web, TCP/IP, the various protocols and coding types, networking, Hosting and ‘front end’ variations. Really a whole lot of technical details.

Literacy in both English and the technical languages.

Applications, tools and utilities: a very large list of these.

Graphical awareness and aesthetic sensibility.

Subject mastery: while the means to publish online is a skill-set in itself, the developer invariably has to be accomplished in some overarching activity, e.g ‘Business’ ‘Science’, ‘Literature’, what are commonly referred to as ‘Niche areas’.

This little list is by no means exhaustive, I am merely introducing the plethora of skills that are essential to successfully develop web publications, all of this takes time, energy and dedication to achieve, hopefully I have given you a clearer idea as to why this might be a challenging area. Not everyone is prepared to dedicate their time and energies to building these skills, hence why it can be ‘difficult’.