Where to start...

bigbadish · 3 Nov 2005 at 15:23

Hey guys,

I'm hoping to teach myself how to create and maintain professional, and fun looking websites. But I don't know where to start, and with all HTML, XHTML, JAVA, and the others I can't remember, I havn't got a clue where to start.

Would you guys/gals be able to point me in the right direction, as in what books to possibly purchase, and in what order I should learn first to help the progression continue the easiest.

Would be mucho appreciated.

Shoseki · 3 Nov 2005 at 15:25

ok first points :

People get paid a ton of money just to develop gorgeous websites in XHTML and CSS. You could start with just those two. They are good to get started.

Java is an entire programming language comparable to C++ and is huge and not necessary for web development. I'd stick to the first two I mentioned and then dabble in a little PHP if you wanna go further.

bigbadish · 3 Nov 2005 at 15:31

Thanks a lot for the response, I will have a look for some recommended books on those two before I leave work.

D4VE · 3 Nov 2005 at 16:23

Begin with HTML. As a language it's very simple and you'll learn HTML/XHTML pretty quickly.
Then tackle CSS. This is where it gets fun (and more tricky).

There are a lot of design principles such as good colour choice and typography which can be learned to an extent, but a lot of hard work and practice will be required.

Learning these things is a never ending process of course.

I doubt anyone can say they have really reached the end of the road in web development, there's always another language or design style to try out.

Mr_L · 3 Nov 2005 at 17:33

bigbadish said:
Hey guys,
I'm hoping to teach myself how to create and maintain professional, and fun looking websites. But I don't know where to start, and with all HTML, XHTML, JAVA, and the others I can't remember, I havn't got a clue where to start.

You maybe mean JavaScript when you mention JAVA, which is useful for websites. Some tutorials for which are located ----> http://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp

Your better off going with X/HTML and CSS first though to get started as the other fella's have said.

bigbadish · 3 Nov 2005 at 22:00

Thanks for all the help guys, I will order some X/html and css books tomorrow and report back in a few weeks

Gman · 3 Nov 2005 at 22:29

bigbadish said:
Thanks for all the help guys, I will order some X/html and css books tomorrow and report back in a few weeks

personaly mate I wouldn't bother with the books, most books are well out of date and will most likely teach you bad habbits.

I would look at online resources for html and CSS as they will be more up to date.
your probalby best off using books for php.

LazyManc · 4 Nov 2005 at 12:51

Yup, no need for books for XHTML / CSS, everything you need is online and it's not exactly complicated. The main focus should be on practice and experimenting with different CSS attributes.

Might as well ignore standard HTML tags these days, better to start from a clean (semantic) slate with the stricter XHTML

www.w3schools.com is an excellent resource

Mr_L · 4 Nov 2005 at 16:32

Gman said:
personaly mate I wouldn't bother with the books, most books are well out of date and will most likely teach you bad habbits.

I would look at online resources for html and CSS as they will be more up to date.
your probalby best off using books for php.

hmm, I would agree but you can also learn bad habbits off websites as well. At least I did when I first started teaching myself PHP. So I've had to start all over again from scratch.

I shant mention one particular website but it is pretty well known and I picked up a lot of bad habbits from it. I would check how old particular tutorials/articles are before going through them.

LazyManc · 5 Nov 2005 at 12:57

Mr_L said:
hmm, I would agree but you can also learn bad habbits off websites as well. At least I did when I first started teaching myself PHP. So I've had to start all over again from scratch.

I shant mention one particular website but it is pretty well known and I picked up a lot of bad habbits from it. I would check how old particular tutorials/articles are before going through them.

The great thing about XHTML is it's pretty hard to develop any bad habbits - the page won't validate if you start being sloppy. The only thing i'd really suggest is to try and avoid using absolute positioning unless you really need it and it fits the design you're creating.

For PHP / MySQL then yeah, i'd definitely suggest getting a book (or a couple - they all bring different takes on the subject, helps if your work pays for them

). That way, you'll get a complete introduction to the language which is consistant throughout, which is probably more helpful than learning a bit here and a bit there from various websites.

Mr_L · 5 Nov 2005 at 13:33

I would agree that it is hard to get bad habbits in terms of coding XHTML when it comes to validating. However, there are still bad habits you could pick up with adding in extra divs when you don't really need them and could use the tags allready in the page.

One of these would be to put a design/layout image in the page instead of the CSS or not using the alt tag/text to describe what the image is within the page. This being the case in the "That website iCraig made.." thread where a discussion was started about the use of the alt tag/text.