Hoping to go into Web Development - need advice 2

[jamor1999]

Hi everyone, it's been awhile since I did any web programming or design. I'm reading about so many technologies and I'm getting very frustrated - not to mention confused.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to where to start? What languages or products, etc should I be looking into?

Besides html, I'm assuming I'll need some background in:
xml
css
javascript
vbscript
asp
IIS
a bit of photoshop

What should I focus extra attention on (and I am particularly interested in the programming back end)? What should I skim through for a basic idea?

Anyone have advice?

 

[sleipnir214]

You have a bunch of high-level specifications there. What about more fundamental protocols and specifications: HTTP, CGI, and TCP/IP networking fundamentals?

You also seem pretty Mi¢ro$oft-specific, there. Apache runs twice the number of web sites that IIS does. PHP powers more web sites than ASP/VBScript. It seems to me that it would be unwise to ignore these products.


Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[manarth]

As a designer, you should concentrate on structural html.

This means using [tt]<h1> Title </h1>[/tt] to indicate a heading (instead of a visual element like [tt]<font size=&quot;20px&quot;><b> Title </b></font>[/tt]).

For backend stuff, look at PHP, JSP, and ASP technologies. Most designers have a preference; I go for PHP (because it's installed on most linux hosts), I prefer to avoid ASP if I can, but that depends on the client's needs.

I wouldn't worry too much about scripting - there's so much that can be done with CSS (and much easier) that you probably can avoid it. The usual scripting is for rollover images - this can be done in CSS with the attribute [tt]element:hover {background-image: url(images/pic.jpg);}[/tt]

XML is a nice one to learn, but you can get going with XHTML much quicker. It's basically a very strict HTML, which requires all tags to be closed. (the unclosing tags such as [tt]<br>[/tt] are closed with a trailing slash: [tt]<br />[/tt]).

Good luck!

<marc> i wonder what will happen if i press this...[ul][li]please give feedback on what works / what doesn't[/li][li]need some help? how to get a better answer: faq581-3339[/li][/ul]

 

[jamor1999]

I guess I'm stuck in the Microsoft mentality. I currently work with Microsoft products as a systems admin so I've got the tcp/ip down.

I guess I had forgotten about cgi and perl, althought i've had some exposure. Must add those.

Now I'm back to square one. What's the best way not to get overwelhmed by all this? My only option now is to tackle one at a time. Even a college won't be able to offer me all that.

As for Apache, how do you recommend I set up a test environment? I'm not ready to take on Unix, do you think that setting it up on win2k would be good enough?

And thanks!

 

[jamor1999]

I'm guessing that without linux background, the php is going to be difficult. Do you agree?

 

[sleipnir214]

Nope. PHP is platform agnostic. It will run under IIS, too.

Also, don't fall into the trap of using &quot;CGI&quot; and &quot;perl&quot; the way you did on your earlier post. perl is a programming language. CGI is a specification for getting input to a script running on a web server.


I recommend you learn the theory first. If you understand the HTTP conversation that goes on between a web client and web server, learning Apache and IIS is mostly a process of learning the quirks of the two servers.

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[manarth]

A huge number of webservers run linux/apache - the typical setup is a RedHat distro running Apache with Mysql, mod_php and mod_perl.

I've got a linux server as my personal testbed - it's a good idea as long as you've got a spare box / you're happy to fork out for another system.

I'd go for the grounding in XHTML & structural HTML, because the backend stuff has to be presented properly - but it sounds like you're fairly up to speed on HTML anyway... If you've got a background in programming, you should find PHP is fairly easy to pick up - in my experience heavy backend stuff is often done with PHP, perl being used for some of the lighter stuff (hit counters, etc).

<marc> i wonder what will happen if i press this...[ul][li]please give feedback on what works / what doesn't[/li][li]need some help? how to get a better answer: faq581-3339[/li][/ul]

 

[jamor1999]

Well, sounds like a challenge, but that at least boils it down to what I needed to hear. I wanted to know expert recommendations. And appreciate all your help! I will get started on this endeavor asap.

I've got a spare junker and I'm gonna throw redhat on it and apache. I'll try to get comfy with that. Then onto the PHP and the Xhtml - then down the list, I suppose. I've at least got a plan now.

Thanks guys!

 

[Rougy]

I'm no expert, but Coldfusion servers and Flash MX programs (Dreamweaver and Fireworks too) seem to be a lot more future-oriented in web development.

That's where I'll be investing my time for web stuff.

PHP is great. MySQL is great.

Microsoft has some advantages here and there, sure, but I'd go with the Open Source movement.

Just my &quot;un-expert&quot; two-cents as a webmaster.

-----
The death of dogma is the birth of reason.

 

[Rougy]

P.S.

Last I checked, this program was free: phpBB.

It's all PHP and MySQL and it's pretty killer. To me, it's a good indication of what you can do with those two programs.

http://www.phpbb.com/

-----
The death of dogma is the birth of reason.

 

[jamor1999]

Oh thank you! I'll take a gander at that link. You guys are really helpful!

 

[dilettante]

Hmm...

Any idea as to where you want to go?

Are you considering internal long-term employment or thinking more in terms of offering consulting or contracting services?

In the former case you almost need to be more of a web application developer today, including things like some flavor of J2EE or .Net along with a lot of DBMS background. Plus the usual grab-bag of developer experience and soft skills, etc. In the consulting space there is still room for helping smaller outfits &quot;get on the web&quot; but they are less interested in having you show up every week to update web content than having you provide a tool and training to let their regular in-house staff do that.

Plain old &quot;web johnny&quot; jobs are getting scarcer. Routine web content tasks are delegated to regular staff more and more now. In bigger companies you'd have to be quite conversant with a content-management system's designer tools to get a &quot;web job.&quot; The small places (as I said earlier) want somebody to set it up and be available for consultation, but can't afford live-in expertise. They might want Flash on their home page, but won't pay for more than that. Many don't need heavier server-side processing than just accepting contact info or requests for more info. Some need a limited shopping cart functionality but won't pay for extensive custom development.

Just some thoughts.

 

[jamor1999]

I have finished installing apache and php on my test server. I was thinking that I wanted to learn to connect, read, write using php to mySQL and then maybe try microsoft sql server, since it's readily available in my office.

Also, I was thinking I'd try to connect to a different type of database (PVXWIN32) for an accounting program we run called Mas 90. Not that this is going to be my long term goal - just to give my boss something to smile about-hopefully

Do you recommend an other databases to play with? Something in heavy use, I suppose. I think Microsoft SQL beats out Oracle in popularity, but I could certainly try both.

Any ideas on how to can some expertise? Project ideas?