Website coding

[KSoD]

Alright all you gurus out there. Just a quick informative post.

I have been interesting in learning how to code a website for some time. I can read the source for many pages and be able to figure almost everything out. I also have at least 10GB of EBooks on the subject matter.

Sadly being a father i dont get time to sit in front of my PC and read EBooks all day. So i went on EBay and got about 8 paper back books to read. they cover

HTML, XHTML, CSS, Ajax, PHP, MySQL

Now i know that i wont be able to just read these and code a full site. My main question is what else am i missing? Those are the main ones that i know of which are used in web site coding. Not sure if i missed anything. If i did let me know so I can get the material and read up on it.

thanks in advance.

 

[oldskool]

Well you have AJAX in there, so you might as well throw in Javascript, as AJAX is Javascript used in conjunction with XML. Other than that, you have it covered as far as the major ones. You could go ASP and Perl, but PHP will do what you want for most things I'd say. Where you are quite familiar with Windows and MS products in general, ASP might be intuitive for ya.

 

[KSoD]

Got a XML, Pearl and JavaScript book now. Thanks for those suggestions OS.

 

[oldskool]

No problem. Perl is still used extensively, but PHP (based on Perl) is the language that seems to be the most popular these days. Regarding AJAX, one thing I would like to add, is the XML is involved with it, but if you get a good command of Javascript then you will do well with AJAX. Plus it is a good bathroom cleanser as well.

 

[KSoD]

Well the 1 book i got was PHP and Peral in one. So that will be nice. I got a basic XML book so i can learn that along with Javascript. Could finally make some of my own User.JS for Opera....

Just have to wait for delivery!

 

[oldskool]

Awesome ! You will a coding fool in no time

 

[CrazeD]

Start with learning proper, standards compliant xhtml and CSS. Once you've got that down, pick either Javascript or PHP to focus on. They are syntactically quite similar, so once you master one the other won't be that hard to pick up. Once you've mastered one, move on to the other.

AJAX is quite simple really. It basically just allows Javascript to interact with server side scripts like PHP. AJAX isn't a language, as all AJAX is coded using Javascript, so once you get a good grip of Javascript it's very easy.

Perl is also a great language, but I find it's a lot harder to setup and use than PHP is. Maybe I've just had bad luck with it, I dunno. It can do anything PHP can do and more, but it's a little more involved.

As far as ASP, I wouldn't bother learning it unless you just want to for the sake of it. It can only be used on Windows, and the majority of websites are run under Linux...so, you'd be using Perl/PHP.

Hope that helps.

Oh, and, make these sites your friends:
W3Schools Online Web Tutorials
Web Design Library — One-stop Web Design Resource
EchoEcho.Com - Web Hosting - JavaScript Tutorial - HTML tutorial - CSS Tutorial - Flash Tutorial - Online for free!

 

[KSoD]

Thanks CrazeD.

I got a book that was published in 2008 for my HTML, XHTML and CSS material. So it should be pretty recent with the current standards.

I dont plan on jumping to Ajax, Peral and all that till after i make sure i have a decent grasp on those 3 first.

I know of W3Schools already. That is how i know most of the HTML i can read right now. Been through that site multiple times. I will make sure to bookmark the other 2 as well.

 

[CrazeD]

Sounds like you're off to a good start then.

One thing you can do to practice, is go to a template site (like Free Clan Gaming Templates - ClanTemplates.com) and grab a bunch of templates. Download them, and then code a standards compliant template from scratch using only the images.

 

[KSoD]

I have done stuff like that already. Tried to code some templates using just images, along with trying to just code stuff with images i have on my PC. Then compared them to the code that they have and see where i went wrong.

This is just so i can learn how to do it right. Not a hack job.