What should I learn to become a web developer?
 

Hi, so I've been teaching myself web development/design for about 6 month now. I'm pretty proficient at converting PSDs using HTML and CSS, and I've learned some Javascript (read Eloquent Javascript, practiced some on my own and read some more tutorials) and am okay at the basic stuff like form verification, simple DOM manipulations and OO programming etc...
I'm kinda stuck about what I should learn/do next. Should I read a book that's more in depth on CSS? Learn Jquery? Read a more in-depth javascript book like Javascript: The Definitive Guide or Javascript the Good parts, or just get out there and see what I can do?
I'm hoping to build a small portfolio and some work experience by the end of the summer, and hope one day maybe a year from now to become a client-side web developer, maybe with more in-depth knowledge of some graphic and design parts as well. Any suggestions? Thanks!

I suggest you to try and get small freelance jobs while you study further.

In addition, you can look for some good internship programs and can gain experience from there. Maybe be a web designing assistant and do debugging tasks or simple graphic designs. Certifications can help as well; some like Dreamweaver or Flash Professional.

I'm tempted to say you will be limited in your options until you learn PHP and MySQL. All the stuff you have listed are client-side languages so you might want to brush up on some server-side languages if you want your websites to be dynamic.

I highly recommend the following book:
http://www.amazon.com/MySQL-Dynamic-.../dp/B005GXM63U

FGS - DON'T USE DREAMWEAVER!

If you intend to make website without learning from it, the go ahead.
Otherwise - stay away from it.

It will only teach you a lot bad coding, that you might confuse with proper coding later on.

I agree with d'Anconia that you will want to learn some server side programming at some point. PHP is a great language to start with. It has a large community base with in which to learn from. There are thousands of tutorials on the net. Almost all web hosts have PHP installed. Also, it is rather easy to pick up since you already have some experience with JavaScript.

Personally, I wouldn't jump straight into jQuery yet until you feel you have a good grasp on standard JavaScript. Yes, jQuery makes common programming problems elegant and easy; however, you might not have the option to utilize jQuery in every project.

Resources to look at:
http://net.tutsplus.com/
http://www.sitepoint.com/
http://php.net/manual/en/index.php

Yes, much of the work I need is php involved. I guess you could go the other way and look at asp or .net.

I guess it largely depends on what you have an interest in and skill.

No matter what you learn you are better served than spending that time not learning.

Go to some freelancing sites(and here) and see what jobs people need. Look for the ones that interest you, and look for the skills you dont have in order to get your next gig.