Pink and Fluffy Noobie Question

coolaboola

I couldn't find a sticky on this very, very basic question: what's the best way to go about learning how to develop web sites (everything from choosing and purchasing a domain name and choosing a hosting service to setting up, optimising and running the web site itself)??

Does anyone have recommeded reading (books and/or websites) that would serve as a good starting point?

I found a few recommendations on older threads (some nearly 10 years old) but wanted to check what's the best current guide.

I have very little (almost none!) web development experience... the one and only web site I have developed to date was a site I coded in HTML (teaching myself from Joe Burns' 'HTML Goodies' book) in 1999 to share my wedding pics (in the days before facebook!)

sheesh

Ok bit of a large question

Domain : we are not allowed discuss hosting options in the thread (I think it just leads to massive bitching)


so we cannot discuss hosting so you could just pick one and go with it for a while. you are after all just learning and a .com + hosting is pretty cheap

if you are just looking to put together a personal site I suggest starting with a cms like wordpress joomla and trying them out
Find a theme you like and mess around with it.

but before you do that just try to learn html to create a page. by html I really mean XHTML and not HTML 5 which is not supported by all browsers.

A bog standard page page would be html and some images with links and an external css style sheet

http://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutorials/getting_started/
and
http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp

would be 2 sites I would recommend.

these first pages will look really bad as you probably will not have put any thought into design and all your effort into using different facets of html and css
once you know enough html/css to create 3 column layouts, navigation bars,
Headers footers etc you need to practice taking a design and converting that into a html file head over to a site like http://www.oswd.org/ and find a design you like then take a screenshot and try to reproduce it.

so to create a simple brochure website you need a image manipulation program, knowledge of HTML and Css

to make a slightly better brochure website you need a image manipulation program, knowledge of HTML and Css and javascript like JQuery to create some sort of interactivity.

after that then look at adding bits of code from sites like facebook flickr.

coolaboola

Great reply Sheesh! Thanks a million for taking the time to post such a detailed response to my very big questions

(HTML Goodies was the site from which I taught myself HTML way back in 1999!)

I've borrowed WordPress for Dummies from the library tonight and intend to get stuck straight in ...

(It's not for a personal site ultimately, but a possible small business site (un-IT related) that I'm considering developing for which I need a pretty basic, mostly static brochure-type web site.)

Thanks again! You're a twinkly star

Kenny Logins

I would concentrate on Wordpress for the business site, it makes it very easy to have a professional looking and fully functional site up and running in no time, but has the flexibility to allow you to dig deeper for customisation if you want to. Plenty of guides on t'internet for installation on a home PC and then webserver when ready.

I'd recommend Notepad++ for experimenting with HTML and CSS, start with a blank page and learn to type web pages, using the links above for reference, or..

Bucky Roberts is a legend for taking the time to create his massive catalogue of free video tutorials, I haven't watched any of the HTML CSS series, but having worked through others I have no doubt they're excellent.

http://thenewboston.org/list.php?cat=40

coolaboola

Thanks Kenny Logins. At your suggestion I've downloaded Notepad++ and have been following those Bucky Rogers videos - done seven so far. They're very good. All my HTML is coming back to me!

Thanks again!

Boardnashea

I got a very good magazine recently in Easons which dealt with all the areas you ask about. Can't think of the name but will get back to you later.