Web Designer 'N' Developer

Hello Folks

What I need to know and have experience on it, to start my career as Web Designer 'N' Developer

Please list to me:
The Technologies & Languages (ASP, HTML, CFML) I’ve to use, Programs & Software (FrontPage, ColdFusion, Photoshop) , And the certificate as well like CIW or something like that.

Thanks in Advance

zJunior

Hi - there are no set rules with this, a lot of it is personal choice. In terms of languages, definitely start first with HTML and CSS, and then you can decide what else you want to learn after that. In terms of programs, you just need a text editor to get started with coding, even notepad is fine, or there are others with varying features you can download for free (I use Text Wrangler). Then you'll want some kind of graphics/image manipulation software, yes, Photoshop like you mentioned is a good and popular choice, but there are others of course.

With regard certification, this comes up quite often on the forumz, and again it's personal choice and depends what you want to achieve, you don't have to have any certification or qualification in web design, but some employers might require it. Some people find they learn better if start off by doing a course, others are happy to learn by themselves with online tutorials. The most important thing is to get experience and build up a portfolio of work to show potential employers or clients.

Hope this helps as a starting point!

Start with HTML and CSS

Then PHP and MySQL and/or .NET and Oracle

Then Javascript and everything else

Thanks karinne

VanessaJW Thank you very much for your Advice, much appreciated

By the way I'm using Context as code editor, try it you will like it

zJunior

never heard of it
has it got intellisense?

here is the link for the tool
http://www.context.cx/

I might try it when dreamweaver decides to flunk again

As Venessa said, it is all preference. But I would suggest JavaScript before PHP or any server side language. For me, that was a great primer to get into more advanced programming practices.

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Web Design and Development

I find PHP way easier than JS.
But I think learning JS first might help as it's syntax is more similar to most programming languages if you are ever interested in that.

Well I think we just proved the "preference" point.

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Web Design and Development

Oh yeah
I'm going to post a thread in the cafe to see peoples favourite languages.

Yep start with XHTML and CSS. Then if I were you I would work up to PHP, and photoshop. Also, you might want to consider putting flash on your list of things to learn. Most websites have some flash in them somewhere....or at least most BIG websites!

"But I would suggest JavaScript before PHP or any server side language"

If you're really serious about becoming a developer buy some Windows hosting and start learning ASP/MSQL for dynamic applications. I actually love PHP and think it's equally good and easier to program, however because big companies use Microsoft (they just do) most medium to large production houses will expect you to know ASP.
If you're a little impatient, you could try downloading joomla (php and mysql based content management system) or dotnetnuke (asp and msql based content management system). Try pulling them apart and seeing how they work - it will give you a better idea of how big programmatic sites work. You will need Apache/MySQL/PHP hosting for Joomla and Windows IIS (ASP) / MSQL hosting for DotNetNuke, which you casn buy as a hosting plan when you register your domain. If you're like me and you like to develop locally you can use a complete distribution on http://localhost like WAMP (Windows Apache MySQL PHP) or LAMP MAMP depending on your operating system (just change the first letter to match your operating system and google it). For ASP (IIS) hosting you should be able to use this tutorial to set it up (note: this is for c# rather than ASP) -

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms733766.aspx

As for stuff to buy, you're a masochist if you don't own a copy of Photoshop. Here is a good tutorial for getting xhtml/css based websites out of Photoshop -

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/q...swithphotoshop

It is a good trick to know. My final advice would be not to let the difficulty of the designing and coding get to you. Everything is a total mind-bender to begin with, but the more experience you get the easier it will become and the more powerful your sites can be! Starting with xhtml/css is a good place to start, but don't be afraid to dive into the deep end.

Also, remember that Search Engines results can be a significant factor in getting people to see your site, so I would suggest reading a few SEO forums - this one is very good -

http://www.seobook.com


The final thing to learn is accessibility, but this is more of a subjective thing. w3c compliance and section 508 compliance are good places to start, but this is a machine telling you whether or not your site is easy to use - the best way is to get non-tech-savvy people to use your website and see if it is intuitive enough for them to not have any issues.


When in doubt, go to www.w3c.org


I hope that helps.

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Web Design Sydney - Demonz Media