Web development

Hey Guys,

Im finding this area very interesting. Dont know much about it however could someone point me in the right direction to get started?

Possibly a career change :P

Thanks

The beginning is always the same when it comes to web development, learn HTML, then CSS, then JavaScript, then choose a server-side language once you have those down. I recommend w3schools.com as a great beginning resource to learn just about anything in the field.

Thanks J,

Ill do the tuts on there but could you recommend a book on this I can maybe get?

Any monies in this field :P

I'm afraid I can't, I didn't learn from a book, I learned from school and then from forums and the web in general, including that site I mentioned. Regarding money, it's like any other field, the better you are at it, the more aspects you excel at, the more job opportunities there are. I don't know how it is in South Africa but it's a fairly saturated field overall. Server-side scripting will definitely get you better job opportunities but you need to know the basics first and that's what I mentioned above

This is a good forum for learning web development. It's also the one I belonged to when I heard about this job that I have.

Very much appreciated.

Just install and setup xampp then apply the addons and fixes.

Hey Spec,

Checking it out now.

Is there actually any point in learning HTML from scratch these days?

JP: Im going through the HTML "course" http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_getstarted.asp

Anyway that I can download this for offline viewing?

you would have to save each individual page as an HTML document. Not worth it.

Meh: You you suggest I go through that site or jsut get a self study book effort?

I would try the free option first.

w3schools is the best IMO for free learning web stuff. I still refer to it at times. Also, http://www.devguru.com/home.asp can be a life saver!

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Originally Posted by The-Spec

Just install and setup xampp then apply the addons and fixes.

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thats a good one but i have another suggestion using localhost as ur webserver. try using wamp.

The other dude here by us uses Wamp ...

I have to learn html first though.

I am going to host a site for myself to play around with.

Just a basic one. http://www.host4africa.com/ The R99 one.

This is the right way to go ?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cider

I am going to host a site for myself to play around with.
Just a basic one. http://www.host4africa.com/ The R99 one.

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u mean the R9.99pm. that's fine.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cider

I have to learn html first though.

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i'd suggest testing your html first using ur offline(localhost) webserver. If everything is fine, u can then upload it to your online host.

Quote:

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u mean the R9.99pm. that's fine.

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Yes that is correct :)

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i'd suggest testing your html first using ur offline(localhost) webserver. If everything is fine, u can then upload it to your online host.

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I dont even know how to do this 0_o ... I will have to start learning all these things.

html codes can be used without a local webserver. however, if you consider it running as a website you'll be needing wamp or xampp first inorder for you to know how a online website works. :-)

I'd honestly suggest learning a non-web language first - if you don't know one already. It'll give you a good idea of good programming practices. The upside to this, is some of the non-web languages, also do double-time as popular web languages. Python and Ruby are two prime examples (though people do some non-web PHP too, meh).

To start, I'd say do as NPnyc suggested and learn the markup of the web first with (X)HTML. Learn the stylesheet stuff with CSS, learn the browser-side stuff with ECMAScript (JavaScript, ActionScript... bleh Flash). Once you have a pretty solid understanding of that stuff, move onto a server side language. PHP is pretty popular these days, but PHP allows for some pretty ugly code, and bad practices (which is one of the reasons I suggest you learn a language like Java or C++ first). PHP also has some really good documentation at php.net/docs. Python is pretty popular as well, with some nice frameworks like Django and Pylons. Ruby is also obviously pretty big with Ruby on Rails.

Good luck. Feel free to PM me if you get stuck and need some one-to-one help. :-)

-MB

Thanks for all the tips ...

the good news about learning HTML CSS and JavaScript is that you can practice right on your computer without any special setup. You don't need server software or anything of that nature. All you need is Notepad and a browser, preferably several of them because there will be certain display differences between them.

Great stuff,

I will give it all a go.

one at a time. hehehhee