Web development

[Kpnuts]

Hi all,

I first learned HTML years and years ago, but since then I've sort of got to the point where I'm happy using dreamweaver and HTML tables to design websites...

I'd like to learn more about proper development and coding standards. Where's the best place to start?

I already have a CSS book so I intend to learn that in full. What would be useful to know next?

Javascript? PHP? AJAX?

Many thanks for any suggestions

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

I'd suggest javascript (basics) first. You can also try open source javascript stuff, like jquery or the stuff at dynamicdrive.com, both to use/modify and to study.

AJAX for instance is server-side stuff, and for a beginner, you should start with client-side first. XHTML and CSS (which is actually much more versatile than tables when you learn how to use it), followed by some Javascript, imo.

At that point IF you have a good handle on XHTML/CSS/Javascript, you can 'graduate' to the other stuff. Just those three alone actually lets you do a LOT of stuff, and if you're not a professional web developer (ie you get paid for it) you can even get by on just those three.

 

[Kpnuts]

Thanks for your reply, really appreciate it.

Was thinking about it overnight and I'd definitely agree with you. I'll concentrate on learning CSS/XHTML first, then move onto Javascript. Then when I know those 3 inside and out, then I'll move onto the more advanced stuff.

(I am looking to become a pro web developer)

 

[GeneHunt]

(I am looking to become a pro web developer

I hate to put a downer on it but I wouldnt bother, its what a lot of graduates want to do as they see it as the easy option so companies pay very poorly (until your a senior one anyway) thats always something new to learn and last but not least it can be extreamly stressful.

If i were you id become a programmer instead if you are into that kind of thing (learn c#).

Im a web developer by the way, I have 3 years experience and im only paid £15k.

Seriously dont do it.

 

[Deckerd]

If you're using xhtml The easiest thing to do, as with most things, is to look at something someone else has done.

This is a good place to start. Modern web accessibility doesn't use tables (wherever possible) for instance. Backgrounding as much as you can to the .css file(s) improves accessibility. I run a website and have done so for about 15 years. I get paid well to do it but unless you can get into web manager job, I would say Shinzon is right. Web development is a bit of a dead end unless you are really really good at it.

 

[Kpnuts]

I'm a graphic designer and a photographer at the moment, the web design and development is only to supplement my skill set. I'm not saying I want to make a career as a web developer.

Is there different standards of CSS coding, I see references to CSS 1, 2 and 3 all over the place.

 

[GeneHunt]

Is there different standards of CSS coding, I see references to CSS 1, 2 and 3 all over the place.

Thing you need to be careful of there is people using older browsers, IE 6 is still very popular (though IE 7 is catching up) and its support of CSS is appauling, it also doesnt support PNG's.

check out the below link for web browser stats.

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

CSS is a god send once you learn how to use it properly, I would never go back to tables.

 

[smithaa02]

Hi all,

I first learned HTML years and years ago, but since then I've sort of got to the point where I'm happy using dreamweaver and HTML tables to design websites...

I'd like to learn more about proper development and coding standards. Where's the best place to start?

I already have a CSS book so I intend to learn that in full. What would be useful to know next?

Javascript? PHP? AJAX?

Many thanks for any suggestions

XHTML is good stuff to know but it is a tad overrated. Using tables for many design elements is still recommended (like for 3 column layouts). You can emulate almost everything in CSS that you can do in tables, but it is very time consuming and requires a lot of divs and CSS to make it perfectly browser compatible.

HTML5 (what google is pushing) will be the future and not XHTML.

I would suggest mastering CSS because it will give you so many options.

Don't learn AJAX without first learning javascript. Javascript is nice like for menus, but for the most part it is better to use server side scripting. My recommandation in that case would be PHP (and not C#, ASP, JSP, CFM or any other competitors). PHP is the most popular, it is free, and widely supported by free applications.

Also learn flash, Search Engine Optimization, cross browser development, and possibley MySQL databases (if you get into PHP).

A good resource for questions is the forum webmasterworld.com.

 

[Kpnuts]

Hi all,

I first learned HTML years and years ago, but since then I've sort of got to the point where I'm happy using dreamweaver and HTML tables to design websites...

I'd like to learn more about proper development and coding standards. Where's the best place to start?

I already have a CSS book so I intend to learn that in full. What would be useful to know next?

Javascript? PHP? AJAX?

Many thanks for any suggestions

XHTML is good stuff to know but it is a tad overrated. Using tables for many design elements is still recommended (like for 3 column layouts). You can emulate almost everything in CSS that you can do in tables, but it is very time consuming and requires a lot of divs and CSS to make it perfectly browser compatible.

HTML5 (what google is pushing) will be the future and not XHTML.

I would suggest mastering CSS because it will give you so many options.

Don't learn AJAX without first learning javascript. Javascript is nice like for menus, but for the most part it is better to use server side scripting. My recommandation in that case would be PHP (and not C#, ASP, JSP, CFM or any other competitors). PHP is the most popular, it is free, and widely supported by free applications.

Also learn flash, Search Engine Optimization, cross browser development, and possibley MySQL databases (if you get into PHP).

A good resource for questions is the forum webmasterworld.com.

Many thanks for your thoughts, great advice. Will also have a look at the website you suggested.

I already know flash but will work on learning actionscript as well.

Still a bit confused about the difference between CSS 1, 2 and 3 though.

 

[Mr. B]

If you are interested in learning proper coding, I'd start doing it by hand and stop using Dreamweaver.

If you aren't in a hurry to learn everything I would suggest you just start a website with an clear idea of what you want. When you want to add something and don't know how to code it, you can look it up (http://www.w3schools.com is a good site) and examine example code from a site that already has a feature you want.

I don't believe it's necessary to buy any books on the subject since everything is obviously online. XHTML is pretty close to what you already know (<br /> instead of <BR>) and the learning curve for CSS isn't too bad. Once you've mastered DIVs you are set in my opinion.

Having never learned Javascript or PHP myself, I couldn't recommend you make it a priority. There's a prepackaged anything for JS and I haven't had to learn much beyond echo in PHP.

One more thing. As a Dreamweaver user I would presume you've become accustomed to the sloppy and invalid code the program generates. Start validating your code. The standards-compliant browser world will thank you.

 

[Deckerd]

Just a point of clarity here. I use Dreamweaver but work in code. You can split the screen to get an idea of what's happening, which is the view I always work with. Then you can update whenever you feel like it. The only problem with D/W is it won't let you have two windows open so when I'm tweaking a css, I have to toggle to view.

 

[GeneHunt]

Just a point of clarity here. I use Dreamweaver but work in code. You can split the screen to get an idea of what's happening, which is the view I always work with. Then you can update whenever you feel like it. The only problem with D/W is it won't let you have two windows open so when I'm tweaking a css, I have to toggle to view.

A word of warning, it rarely looks the same in a real browser as it does in dreamweaver, you will be much better off testing in browsers as you go.

Once piece of advice I can give you is when your learning css dont get a case of dividise which is something a lot of people (including myself) do while learning, by this i mean dont do things like

<div class="formfield"><label for="bah">bah</label></div>

<label for="bah" class="formfield">bah</label>

will do exactly the same as long as you set it as a block level element in your stylesheet (display:block. The above is exactly the same as doing this:

<div class="BoldText"><strong>bah</strong></div>

Maybe not as obvious but its the same thing. Any questions about css just ask.

 

[smithaa02]

Many thanks for your thoughts, great advice. Will also have a look at the website you suggested.

I already know flash but will work on learning actionscript as well.

Actionscript is definitely good stuff to know... Not just so you can create your own apps, but so you can play with and configure the free actionscript programs available on the web (like slideshows, scrollers,etc...). Actionscript has a very similar syntax to PHP so this would be a bonus as well.

Still a bit confused about the difference between CSS 1, 2 and 3 though.

Each is a specification set by W3.org in hopes that browsers will adapt their feature list. CSS 2 is newer (but not as well supported as CSS1) and CSS3 is the newest but least supported (although I think the Opera browser comes close).

Here is a link to the CSS1 specification (basically a huge list of every single style attribute you can set): http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1/

CSS2 (what you probably want to concentrate on): http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/

CSS3: http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-selectors/

If you are worried that a selector isn't supported you can go to google or look it up here: http://www.webdevout.net/browser-support-css

 

[smithaa02]

If you are interested in learning proper coding, I'd start doing it by hand and stop using Dreamweaver.

Definitely the best way to learn is to code html by hand but its not something you want to do for clients (for the most part) as it would take too long.

Having never learned Javascript or PHP myself, I couldn't recommend you make it a priority. There's a prepackaged anything for JS and I haven't had to learn much beyond echo in PHP.

PHP is wonderful stuff... It allows you to create so much (forums, wikis, shopping carts). Plus you don't even need to be a master programmer to use it because there are so many free PHP programs available: http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Scripts_and_Programs/index.html

One more thing. As a Dreamweaver user I would presume you've become accustomed to the sloppy and invalid code the program generates. Start validating your code. The standards-compliant browser world will thank you.

To that end, the 'Web Developer' addon for firefox is recommended. It has a built in link to CSS and XHTML validators. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60

 

[smithaa02]

Just a point of clarity here. I use Dreamweaver but work in code. You can split the screen to get an idea of what's happening, which is the view I always work with. Then you can update whenever you feel like it. The only problem with D/W is it won't let you have two windows open so when I'm tweaking a css, I have to toggle to view.

I can't stand the way Dreamweaver does CSS and actually prefer to do all my CSS changes with firefox's web developer whichs makes changes to CSS on the fly.

 

[Kpnuts]

Thanks for the info on the different CSS specifications.

Which program do you all use to write CSS coding then? I was tempted to just use notepad to write it, as well as the html files? And keep track on the changes using the web developer extension in firefox? Then again a program like Dreamweaver styles CSS scripts quite well (inserting tabs, auto-suggesting etc...)

 

[Lindley]

If i were you id become a programmer instead if you are into that kind of thing (learn c#).

If you want to become a .NET programmer, yes. If you want to have a hope of being considered eligible for positions requiring lower-level coding it might be wise to go with C++ instead though. Not that C++ is a low-level language----it should not be used as one-----but it at least requires you to manage your own memory properly, something that coders who start in a garbage-collected environment often don't learn very well.

 

[smithaa02]

Thanks for the info on the different CSS specifications.

Which program do you all use to write CSS coding then? I was tempted to just use notepad to write it, as well as the html files? And keep track on the changes using the web developer extension in firefox? Then again a program like Dreamweaver styles CSS scripts quite well (inserting tabs, auto-suggesting etc...)

Notepad is not a bad way to start...

Yes, it doesn't have auto-suggest which is annoying... My favorite way to do it is use Dreamweaver for complicated CSS edits (because of auto-complete) and do most of the on the fly change in firefox (and then copy all the CSS over to main file when I'm done). To start with it might be easier just to make the CSS changes in dreamweaver while you are still learning the syntax, and then switch to your html page in dreamweaver to see what happened (not entirely accurate because Dreamweaver uses an outdated embeded version of IE6). Once you get good, you won't need auto-complete and you can do almost all your CSS changes on the fly in web developer. (I think Firefox's firebug supports on the fly changes + autocomplete though). You may want to play with topstyle and CSSVista as well.

 

[smithaa02]

If i were you id become a programmer instead if you are into that kind of thing (learn c#).

If you want to become a .NET programmer, yes. If you want to have a hope of being considered eligible for positions requiring lower-level coding it might be wise to go with C++ instead though. Not that C++ is a low-level language----it should not be used as one-----but it at least requires you to manage your own memory properly, something that coders who start in a garbage-collected environment often don't learn very well.

Of course the nice thing about web scripting languages like PHP and JSP, is you don't have to worry about garbage collection...

 

[Kpnuts]

Understood thanks!

One last quick question...

Why do I come across some personal website portfolios that have urls like:

www.something.com/portfolio
www.something.com/photos

I thought every page had to end in .html or .php - what file would a URL to the above links be pointing to exactly?

Any thoughts?