Web Development - Where To Start

[cpuxtech]

I want to get into web development and I know html, but should I learn like css and JavaScript next? I really wanna make great looking websites with custom themes, something that looks almost like Gmail, self updating customly styled website.

From my reading css and JavaScript seem like a good place to start off if html but I am also wondering how does jQuery fit into the mix?

And how long would it really take to build an awesome looking functional website? Thanks

[bmxtricky5]

i would start to learn css next if you know html well with the new css3 i have almost found no need for javascript although im not that skilled at web design. i dont know anything about jquery so i cant help there....

 

well we cant really give you a time frame because you would have to learn css, but i would guess if you worked on it night to day maybe a month at least thats the time frame i would give my self anyway...

[Giddyguy]

Codeacademy.com is pretty good. Idk if it will help you much though since you know html, but it has css

[alpenwasser]

If you're really serious about web dev, you will most likely need to be good

at the following (at least):

• HTML: I'm not primarily talking about knowing a few HTML tags, but

  constructing the markup of your site in a well-fashioned manner. That includes

  having a semantically correct site (--> SEO optimization), compact markup (-->

  smaller files and therefore faster page loads) and that your markup can be

  expanded and maintained easily if there are ever to be any changes to your

  site. Getting the first two points right is doable if you read up on the respective

  topics and pay attention to it during development, the last point is a bit

  trickier and comes mostly with experience.

• Server-Side Scripting: PHP, Python, Perl, Ruby etc. You don't need

  to know all of these (depending on whether or not you wish to do this professionally),

  but at least one should be in your repertoire, preferably more. PHP is probably

  easiest to get into, not necessarily because of the language itself, but because

  there are a lot of beginner-friendly tutorials out there, allowing you to get

  some pretty decent knowledge within a reasonable amount of time. For the other

  languages, getting started can be a bit more work.

• CSS: CSS is evolving quite rapidly these days, so keeping up to date

  with the latest tricks will be a bit of work. The big part of CSS-related work

  will be getting your site to run properly on all major platforms with all major

  browsers though. Headaches will ensue, I can promise you that...

• Javascript/JQUERY etc.: With HTML5 and CSS3 you can build a pretty

  decent site (both functionally and aesthetically) these days, but if you're

  really serious about things, you're not really going to get around this topic.

  As for the distinction: JQUERY is a Javascript library. So, basically, it's

  a Javascript script which gets parsed and then provides defined functions for

  you to use in your own Javascript scripts in the rest of your page. If you

  want to know more I recommend having a look at its Wikipedia page, its official

  site and looking for Youtube and other tutorials.

  I highly recommend using a Javascript library instead of bare Javascript (there

  are more than just JQUERY, check Wikipedia for a list), it makes life so much

  easier (personally I think Javascript is a pretty horrible language TBH, but it

  is a de-facto standard these days, no way around it), but knowing Javascript

  itself certainly doesn't hurt.

I'm sure I've forgotten some things (for example, you might also want to investigate

databases, and acquiring some background knowledge on how servers work and are configured

sure wouldn't hurt either), but that's what comes to mind at the moment.

[wing2k5]

If you are comfortable with your knowledge of HTML, then perhaps try CSS next. It is possible to create great-looking websites using only HTML and CSS. Another reason is that CSS is more likely to be easier to learn than Javascript.

 

jQuery is a framework built on top of Javascript. IMO, it is used mainly to simply the use of Javascript in websites. It has a lot of built-in functionality and pretty much is the engine that drives a lot of the interactivity you see on websites nowaday; Things like pop-up dialog boxes (like the login box on this site), image galleries, and live update of news feeds. Javascript takes a little longer to learn because it can do so much.

 

Depending on what is in your design, it can take days or months.

[Locateneil]

I learned web design & development myself with help of few books. 

I recommend you start learning PHP since it is easy* and widely used but you need to have basic knowledge of HTML and JS.  

You can purchase PHP books e.g "Learning PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, and CSS" and you can also watch PHP tutorials for beginners on youtube. 

Also It is very important that you should know how to read programming docs, saves a lot of time. 

Setup Web server platform, I recommend XAMPP, for editor use Notepad++ and configure plugins such as snippets and tidy 2 etc. 

Setup Firebug, Firephp, webdev toolbar plugins in Firefox, Google chrome has DevTools under Tools menu.

Create an account on stackoverflow and don't be shy to throw any question there even ones you think are dumb, solutions is pretty much guaranteed. 

Once you understand the basics of programming logics, syntax etc you can jump ahead into real world projects.

Explore various opensource projects on github or sourceforge etc. 

You can check the code, debug, reverse engineer and modify the opensource projects,

Real projects help you understand projects structure because there is more to development than just knowing syntax. 

 

You can create fantastic websites with little coding using opensource CMSes Joomla, Drupal etc and save a lot of time.

And you can also use frameworks such Zend, CakePhp CodeIgniter etc for large projects. 

That's pretty much how I became an enterprise developer.

 

Let me know how it goes and ask me if you need further help

[SSL]

CSS and jQuery (or a similar API) are essential if you want to get in to web development. I would start with CSS, while learning how to manipulate HTML with Javascript and the library of your choice (e.g. jQuery). Be aware of how different browsers handle the same HTML. Even if you have a preferred browser, test your work in all major browsers. Avail yourself of browser development tools - Firefox, Chrome, and Safari all have them built in.

 

A good way to get started with server-side scripting is to learn how to process data from an HTML form. PHP is a good first language to learn for that. From there you can learn about setting up a database (such as MySQL) to save your submitted data. This is a good time to learn about web security, i.e. how to sanitize user input, avoid SQL injection, password hashing, SSL, etc.

 

XAMPP (Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl) will allow you to get an Apache server environment up and running quickly on a windows PC. Alternatively, you can install a LAMP (Linux) server in a virtual machine and access it with SSH (much like you would do if you pay for hosting). Either way you'll need to run some kind of web server to run server-side code.

 

Finally, constant practice is the best way to learn. Come up with an idea for a website and make a design for it. Build a site for a friend. Keep learning new things. Once you have some experience, it might take anywhere from hours to weeks to develop a site, depending on the scope of the project.