Webpage development - Question.

/usr

Aside from the little bit of HTML, Javascript, and ASP that I've been introduced to, my knowledge when it comes to building webpages is somewhat limited. I've played with Frontpage and Dreamweaver, created a few decent pages for friends, work, etc., but never anything really professional.

If your goal was to eventually do independent webpage work, how would you begin? Not necessarily soon. Let's say a year or so. I would rather not return to school for this, unless I could do some sort of online classes, since I'm still working on another degree.

Any help will be much appreciated.

K_amisi

I think if you learned a bit of PHP it would hep you a great deal, i see most pages have PHP embeded in them.

Not very sure..did it a long time back.

/usr

Yeah, I actually took an interest in learning PHP a while back, but didn't follow through with it.

But to actually develop webpages on my own, I assume that I'll most likely need to learn some graphics program as well.

Anyone with experience care to point me in the right direction? Books, programs, etc.?

Webmaster

As you probably know I do some website development/design besides TechExams.net, and from experience I can suggest a couple of things I use or wish I could use , and some general tips:

- Forget about Frontpage, Dreamweaver truly is 'the' professional's choice. Knowing Frontpage as well obviously can't hurt, but when you start, I suggest spending all your time on Dreamweaver without 'wasting' time on FP. There's soooo much in Dreamweaver, I still use on a small amount of the available features.
- This on you probably already guessed based on some of our PM's in the past: learn PHP/MySQL. Even though you don't need to be an expert, many of the best free and commercial scripts use php/mysql and knowing some basics allows you to better integrate said scripts in your website. Even if you choose the MS (ASP, IIS) road.
- Become an CSS expert and use it, as well as SSI, whenever you can. That will certainly help satisfy any future customers, and saves you a lot of time.
- As for graphics: Get Photoshop, than visit a site such as www.pixel2life.com www.tutorialized.com www.2dvalley.com ( ) etc...

Actually, this last item is probably the most valuable suggestion I can make. As you will see, they have tons of related tutorials. P2L has CSS, HTML, PHP, and other related categories as well. Imo this is the best way to learn it. The better tutorials show you how to use certain features for certain tasks/designs/grahics (instead of discussing just a feature like a product manual does).

I think more suggestions will pop up later on...

/usr

As always, your reply is much appreciated and extremely informative.

What about certifications?

I'm not familiar with the Web track of the MCAD, so I don't know how it differs from actually designing webpages, although I'm certain it does.

The only reason I mention it, is because I'm currently using VB.NET at work, this I have readily available copies to practice with.

Webmaster

What about certifications?

There are certifications for both web design and web development software, but in both cases, experience is more important. Nothing new about that, but in the case of design you can turn this easier into an advantage than with development (or infosec for example). In the web design industry, as well as any other design industry, the key to open doors to good jobs is a good portfolio. Even if you hardly have any 'paid' job experience, if you can show a potential customer what you can do by creating a top-notch portfolio. A printed version (showing off the graphics, layout, the design etc.) and a couple of interactive online demo dummy sites are much more valuable than a resume. Filling a resume with 'real job experience as a designer is not that hard either. There are so many sites like elance.com where you can bid on projects and pursade customers, with your portfolio, to let you do the job. These are usually short and simple contract jobs to design one or more sites.

If you want to work for a larger company designing or developing websites, certifications for the software they use will probably help, but still not as important as a good portfolio.

VB.NET and MCAD are a good example of web development, and has little to do with design and graphics.

If you want to focus on designing rather than developing, html, css, and photoshop (or similar) are pretty much the three most important, and with those it's good to know some php, mysql, linux, apache, iis, etc.

If you decide to focus more on developing the backend and the dynamic and interactive parts of the site, there's, as you already found out, a lot to choose from. Since most websites run on Linux or Unix-like webservers, I'd go for php/mysql/xml rather than VB.NET and ASP. I could be wrong, but I think the latter are used more by medium and large sized organizations who run their Microsoft web servers inhouse, for Internet and Intranet solution.

Whether you go for designing, developing, or both, at first it won't matter that much as you'll need to know a bit of both anyway. Once you start doing the jobs it'll be easier to pick which direction and which technologies you like working with the most.

Something to add to my previous reply and that you might be interested in and would work well as a learner, is creating/modifying templates for forums/portal/galllery scripts.

TeKniques

As already mentioned and some great suggestions made by Johan, I would strongly recommend learning PHP/MySQL.

1. PHP/MySQL
2. Photoshop
3. CSS

If you learn those 3 things as well as have a good knowledge of HTML, you will be able to design very strong websites.

Good luck.

/usr

I realize I'm asking you guys to get fairly specific, but I just want to make sure I'm on the right path.

Do you have specific books you could recommend on each topic?

Webmaster

The 6 books listed on www.2dvalley.com/books.shtml are the most popular PS books, but honestly I can't recommend any of them because I personally don't like their approach. They're basically and primarily rewrite of Photoshops product documentation. That's partly why I suggested the tutorial link dir at pixel2life.com for example. I haven't read any php/mysql nor css books (there so many sites that provide tons of free info about designing and developing websites) but I bet O'Reilly has some good ones on those topics.

/usr

Thanks again!