Tutorials for learning what I need to learn to become a Competitive Website Developer?

Question

I've learned HTML, and my friend is telling me I only need the very very basics of CSS, and to just move on and learn PHP.

What, in your opinion, are the subjects I need to learn to become a great website developer, and why? And, what are some good tutorial sites? The tutorials are very important as well.

Thanks so much.

Answer 1

XHTML/CSS is a must. I don't know what you consider to be the basics of CSS but knowing how to do image replacements and CSS galleries is a must. You need to know and understand how to use the pseudo classes and such.



PHP is important, mostly because of includes because they are very handy when building large sites (or even relatively small ones). It really depends on your goals. If you are going to freelance and just focus on smaller sites then knowing XHTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL, Javascript, Flash (mostly Actionscript), AJAX, and XML are probably the most important. However, a lot of large companies are using CMS (content management systems) to edit and maintain their sites. So if that is where you want to be you should have some knowledge of Joomla, Plone, etc. In those cases you still need to know the rest but need to be strong in server side tech. like PHP and MySQL.



A great place is www.w3schools.com I use it as a quick reference all the time however, it does not go in depth. It is a great place to learn the basics though.



It would also be helpful to be familiar with bash commands in Linux if you are not already and it would really be helpful to have your own development server setup (you'll need it to learn any server side technology).



Most importantly I would not try to learn everything at once but I would try and have a basic understanding of how they fit together so you can plan to implement them later.



Build a personal site that you can use as a testing grounds for your new skills. Even building for a fake company or something (focus on development not content). That way you can try out stuff like building for e-commerce and using MySQL. If you build little sites like that you can use them as examples in a portfolio and then try and get some local clients that might need a website. Don't be afraid to offer your services for cheap or free because you are still learning. A local business with no website should love to help you learn if they get a free site out of it. This will also help you when it comes to interpreting clients needs which is a big part of designing a website...and you can only get that from experience.

Answer 2

Well to be great and most importantly, competitive, you need to know: XHTML (HTML but with stricter rules), CSS, JavaScript, PHP and perhaps Flash. But there's so much more you could be learning as well.



Here's a few useful sites to learn the basics:



http://www.w3schools.com/

http://www.lynda.com/

http://www.nettuts.com



Here's the thing, HTML only sites are thing of the past. Most of the websites out there worth their salt have dynamic content and for that you need a server side scripting language like PHP (version 4 and/or 5) (or ASP from Microsoft) and you need to know how to operate database software such as MySQL. PHP is free, open source and a great way to start learning server side scripting and not to mention, it has great documentation at www.php.net and there exist a great number of frameworks for it once you know the basics. Some of these include Cake PHP, Symphony and Code Igniter. Personally I use Code Igniter and I think it's fantastic but that is something you might want to dive into right after learning the basics of PHP 4/5 as well as Object Oriented Programming concepts in PHP. MySQL is also free, has decent documentation and with a software such as PHPMyAdmin, you can easily learn to create, use and manipulate databases fairly well with minimal knowledge of SQL (though full knowledge of SQL would make you more powerful).



If I were you I would start by getting good at the basics such as XHTML and CSS simultaneously. I don't see how you could learn CSS independently from XHTML. Then I would move on to PHP, MySQL and JavaScript. The good thing about JavaScript, however, is that you can learn programming language concepts applicable to PHP and you don't need any server configuration to try it. This does not mean that you can use JavaScript instead of PHP. Great sites use at least both of those technologies.



Now if you want to move to additional cooler stuff you can learn Flash and its scripting language ActionScript but I don't think it is imperative for you to know Flash until you get a feel for PHP and JavaScript.

Answer 3

Concerning your specific question I would equate it as: learning HTML and CSS is like learning how to grease a cookie sheet before learning how to make cookies. Additionally, PHP alone won't be enough either you still need to manage data (databases). Yet after that as well, there are still numerous other areas to contend with all of which are complex. ASP.net and PHP are both major contenders, developers are typically bias from a preferential standpoint. The ASP.net website does offer extensive learning resources and powerful development tools. That said, such resources may give you a quick boost but you will still need to ensure you learn proper practices in order to be competitive.