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SuperD
Cacti junky



Registered: 10/05/03
Posts: 6,648
Loc: The bridgesii bridge
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Best program for the beginner website developer?
#8139728 - 03/12/08 11:05 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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From what little research I've done thus far, Macromedia's Dreamweaver seems like a promising tool to begin with. Could someone in the know point me in the right direction as to which program is best to begin building/designing websites with?
I'm mainly looking for something not overly complicated until I understand all the fundamentals of website design. Any input, no matter how small is appreciated. I just need a hint as to where to begin my search, I'll happily do the rest of the research.
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   D Manoa said: I need to stop spending all my money on plants and take up a cheaper hobby, like heroin. Looking for Rauhocereus riosaniensis seeds or live specimen(s), me if you have any for trade
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karma35
Stranger
Registered: 09/07/07
Posts: 33
Last seen: 8 months, 27 days
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Re: Best program for the beginner website developer? [Re: SuperD]
#8139893 - 03/12/08 11:48 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Programs like Dreamweaver don't teach you anything about the fundamentals of web design. At best you might become an average website creator, but you'll never become a master using tools like this.
If you're serious about web development, pick up a copy of jEdit (jedit.sf.net) and learn straight HTML and CSS. Get to know the W3C specs inside and out:
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/ http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/ http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
This will take a while -- several months at least.
After you've got a good handle on HTML and CSS, learn the basics of a server-side language like PHP (php.net). In particular, learn how to use server-side "includes" to pull in repetitive code. This is one of the biggest problems with programs like Dreamweaver: They generate static code, and effectively lock you into using them forever. Learning how to pull in header and footer files on your own will let you avoid this proprietary software trap.
After you get a grip on a server-side language, learn a little Javascript. Your knowledge doesn't have to be particularly sophisticated; just getting to the point of being fluent enough to understand other people's code will suffice. However, this will probably take a few more months. Here's a decent place to start:
http://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp
After you know a bit of HTML, CSS, PHP, and Javascript, you'll have a good grasp of the fundamentals of web development, and then I recommend checking out some of the content management systems out there -- e.g. Joomla, Drupal, et al. (google them for their websites) These programs will teach you a lot about how to manage a large site with minimal effort.
Beyond this you're on your own, because there are a lot of ways to branch out from here. After you go through all this, you should have a good idea of where your strengths and interests lie, and you won't need to ask anybody else for direction.
Finally, a word of advice: No matter how long and hard you work at it, it will be a couple years before you are more than a novice, so don't spend too much time on any grandiose project during the first year or two of learning. If you're still doing this in five years you'll look back on whatever you were doing for the first couple years and realize how wrong you were about everything. It takes several years of concentrated effort to really become proficient.
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SuperD
Cacti junky



Registered: 10/05/03
Posts: 6,648
Loc: The bridgesii bridge
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Re: Best program for the beginner website developer? [Re: karma35]
#8140387 - 03/13/08 06:06 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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I appreciate the advice! I'm saving your post so I can reference back to those links. Much thanks. +5
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   D Manoa said: I need to stop spending all my money on plants and take up a cheaper hobby, like heroin. Looking for Rauhocereus riosaniensis seeds or live specimen(s), me if you have any for trade
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero



Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
Loc: Caribbean
Last seen: 3 months, 8 days
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Re: Best program for the beginner website developer? [Re: karma35]
#8140422 - 03/13/08 06:36 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
Programs like Dreamweaver don't teach you anything about the fundamentals of web design. At best you might become an average website creator, but you'll never become a master using tools like this.
I would claim that using tools like Dreamweaver to learn are counter-productive as you end up learning how to creating pages that fit the tools paradigm which is often restrictive. I can almost always tell when a site has been created with frontpage or dreamweaver.
> After you know a bit of HTML, CSS, PHP, and Javascript, you'll have a good grasp of ...
... why web developers loathe Microsoft and IE. You will get to write everything twice because Microsoft wanted to own the web rather than playing fair with existing standards.
Overall, very good advice in karma35's post.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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Legend9123



Registered: 09/24/06
Posts: 2,590
Last seen: 1 year, 7 days
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Re: Best program for the beginner website developer? [Re: SuperD]
#8140553 - 03/13/08 08:33 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
SuperD said: From what little research I've done thus far, Macromedia's Dreamweaver seems like a promising tool to begin with. Could someone in the know point me in the right direction as to which program is best to begin building/designing websites with?
Please for the love of all things holy don't. Follow karma35's advice and learn the languages used so that if someone else ever has to update or manage your website in the future they don't run into a mess of garbled code produced by dreamweaver.
Quote:
Seuss said: > After you know a bit of HTML, CSS, PHP, and Javascript, you'll have a good grasp of ...
... why web developers loathe Microsoft and IE. You will get to write everything twice because Microsoft wanted to own the web rather than playing fair with existing standards.
I really do hate IE. Good news is IE8 is supposedly standards compliant and even passes the acid2 test. Bad news is in order to make your sites work with the old versions of IE now you have to add even more code.
-------------------- Those who would give up a little freedom to get a little security shall soon have neither. -Benjamin Franklin
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