The path to being a nerd

[Pyxis]

There are quite a few people here have dabbled in web design, various programming languages and Photoshop and I would like to know what all of you have picked up and how long it took you.

 

I am really not sure of everything that I want to learn, but so far it's gone like this:

 

Feb-May: HTML, XHTML and CSS

 

June: A bit of ASP.NET 2.0 using Visual Web Developer 2008. This was really frustrating as the ebook steps simply didn't work because they were out dated (I need one for 3.5) and I put this on hold.

 

I set up Apache, Mysql and PHP to learn all of these, but didn't realise that I needed a web server! I've put these on hold indefinitely, after spending ages setting everything up!

 

July - Present: Javascript.. I have been really lazy with it just recently, but I've devoted the entire weekend to it and I am really enjoying it! Javascript is incredibly powerful and can do so much when I think about what I've learnt so far. I am learning from Javascript: The Missing Manual and I am on page 150 out of 500 so far. I've just finished learning the basics and the next few chapters look very promising. I want to finish the book in a couple of months if I can. I am getting through it way too slowly.

 

After I've learnt Javascript, I will learn Ajax and .NET or something similar. I eventually want to learn how to create websites using ASP.NET and might take up C#, but I'm not so sure at the moment.

 

I've got some pretty funky ideas for really dynamic and smart websites, but I will only start working on them after mastering Javascript. I was thinking about learning Flash, but I have never liked using it.

Edited August 14, 2009 by Pyxis
A more appropriate title!

[Ashley]

I'm not sure if I'm honest. I've been using Photoshop for years and years. I know I used it during my A-level photography and that was six years ago, and I'm sure I had been using it for years before that.

 

Same with HTML, I can't remember when I started. Although my HTML knowledge is basic in making stuff, but spotting issues is a bit more advanced after tinkering around on here so much.

[Goafer]

I've been using Photoshop on and off for a year or two. Only really got into it in the past 6 months. Should really pull my finger out, I'll be using it to make money in 2 weeks.

[Pyxis]

Did you two use books or learn from online tutorials? I used to play around with it a lot when I was young, but found everything but the basics really hard to do. I bet there is so much to learn and I was pretty clueless about what to do back then. Some people are more creative than others!

[Shorty]

My job is as a web developer so I guess I should chuck in my $0.02!

 

Around 2000 I made some terrible free template based websites, my first being on Moonfruit (then free) and then on 50megs and 20m.com, which were the freewebs of yesteryear. I then decided I wanted to modify and personalise them. They tended to be based around gaming, then later moved on to skateboarding and music themed personal sites. I went into the code and, with the help of google and w3 schools, figured out what all the html meant and how to change it. I then got ahold of a copy of Paint Shop Pro and, around the same time, joined this forum and decided I wanted to make my own signature. I combined the two things I was slowly learning to make graphics for my own sites. I learned more and more html, back in the days when tables were used to construct everything, nobody used external stylesheets and it was impossible to position or float divs.

 

A friend, who used to be a regular on here and went by the name of pdhq64, tought me a lot of simple php which I used to build ultra-basic CMS backends for sites, so that I could actually sell websites that users could customise. I did that for a few years, selling my first ever site fully designed and coded for $150 about 4-5 years ago.

 

I never read a book about web development or studied a class, but over the years I've gotten better at it and done some freelance stuff. My online portfolio is here, although I stopped updating that when I got a job in an an office doing wage-paid web development just over a month ago. I do really enjoy it, although my current job is all xhtml/css/php with much less opportunity to do actual design in Photoshop, which I am missing. We currently grab projects anywhere between £1k and £40k, which is a bit of a step up for me....

 

I do hard coding with Dreamweaver (although I learned in notepad), php with Zend and edit CSS using Firefox's Web Developers toolbar, which is the best method ever. I love Photoshop CS3, would really struggle to design without it (have tried GIMP and failed). I also don't like CS4, I find it strangely... innaccurate. Fireworks sucks. My flash knowledge extends no further than the menu on my site and I don't really feel a need to extend into it as it's not hugely user friendly. I do dabble in javascript a bit but at work we have more experienced people to do that

 

That, if you can believe it, is my web designer's life in brief. :/ There's so many projects I began, so many ideas bouncing around and I never had time to realise them! Well, one day

Edited August 9, 2009 by Shorty

[Goafer]

Did you two use books or learn from online tutorials? I used to play around with it a lot when I was young, but found everything but the basics really hard to do. I bet there is so much to learn and I was pretty clueless about what to do back then. Some people are more creative than others!

 

I just used it and picked things up through messing around. I did get a few magazines that came with video tutorial DVDs. They were pretty handy for photo based stuff, but I learnt most of the stuff I know through messing about. I only used internet tutorials when I wanted to learn something specific.

 

I'd say your best bet would be to look around Deviantart or RedBubble for stuff you like, then search for a tutorial on Google or something for the bits you do like.

Edited August 10, 2009 by Goafer

[Wesley]

So is this thread dedicated to the programmable side of creative art? I used to do a few websites with HTML/CSS but nothing serious. Now I've picked up C# and am running along with that. When I do anything I'll pop it in here. Cool thread!

[Pantsu Man!]

I've just recently wanted to get into the web design stuff. I've gone through the HTML and CSS parts of w3schools and most of it sunk in, but then I didn't do anything with it and it's mostly gone.

Anyone have any advice on what to do to get it to stick? I guess actually making things would help but does anyone have links to websites or books that I can follow so that I can make a website much like you'd follow a 3DS max book to make something?

Something that gives you premade templates, and tells you what to do with them how to lay them out and whatnot.

[Ten10]

I'm managed to drop into a web dev post myself. I guess I'm lucky as I got the job towards the start of the whole recession thing. I mainly code my html css etc using notepad++. It is a basic text editor programme but it has loads of great plugins and has good support for html and css aiding you with attribute names etc.

 

As for mysql, php and apache, it is very easy to set one up using your pc. I uses Xampp for all that kind of stuff where I test out cms' however my company decided to spend 2 grand to get additional features from the current one we are paying £2000 a year for. Some people don't like change I guess. The CMS we use sucks too. I've heard good things about server2go too.

 

@Pyxis - have a look into javascript frameworks like Jquery and mootools, you can easily make some pretty sweet stuff.

 

But anyway here are two of my favourite web resources for people starting out:

 

Web Monkey

http://htmldog.com/

 

Good for web trends and articles:

Site point

 

For firefox users at the moment they have an add on which is a html reference guide and they are throwing in a free Ebook worth 6 quidish to boot just for downloading.

 

I suppose when I'm not feeling to lazy I will collate a bunch of resources for learning different thing and share with my beloved community.

 

So I've nattered on a bit so I guess the least I can do is link these things:

 

Web servers: Php, apache, mysql:

 

Xampp

Server 2go

 

Development environment:

Notepad++

 

Javascript frameworks:

 

Jquery

MooTools

 

Firefox addons:

 

Codeburner

Web developer tool bar

Firebug

 

I'll probably post a complete list of resources at some point in the future.

Edited August 14, 2009 by Ten10

[Ike]

I

For firefox users at the moment they have a add on which is a html reference guide and they are throwing in a free Ebook worth 6 quidish to boot just for downloading.

 

 

What's the add-on called?

[Ten10]

Oh snap forgot to say it is code burner on the sitepoint website, they have an ad for it at the top of their main page so its kinda hard to miss. May as well throw in the that some additional useful addons for firefox which can be found from the firefox addons site are firebug and web developer tool bar.

 

Updated my first post with links.

Edited August 14, 2009 by Ten10

[Pyxis]

So is this thread dedicated to the programmable side of creative art? I used to do a few websites with HTML/CSS but nothing serious. Now I've picked up C# and am running along with that. When I do anything I'll pop it in here. Cool thread!

 

Yeah, choosing what language or software to use could be likened to an artist choosing what materials to use to paint a picture. It is interesting to know what people are learning, how they are learning it and what their preferences are.

 

Do you like C#? My gf is an IT executive/software engineer and she uses it and scoffs at people using Javascript as if it is out dated. I'd really like to know what it can be used for and how, but I bet that would involve learning it at some point. When you use C#, do you need to use Visual Web Developer? I find Visual Web Developer fascinating, but it seems like they expect you to either know C# or VB to take full advantage of it.

 

I'm managed to drop into a web dev post myself. I guess I'm lucky as I got the job towards the start of the whole recession thing. I mainly code my html css etc using notepad++. It is a basic text editor programme but it has loads of great plugins and has good support for html and css aiding you with attribute names etc.

 

As for mysql, php and apache, it is very easy to set one up using your pc. I uses Xampp for all that kind of stuff where I test out cms' however my company decided to spend 2 grand to get additional features from the current one we are paying £2000 a year for. Some people don't like change I guess. The CMS we use sucks too. I've heard good things about server2go too.

 

@Pyxis - have a look into javascript frameworks like Jquery and mootools, you can easily make some pretty sweet stuff.

 

But anyway here are two of my favourite web resources for people starting out:

 

Web Monkey

http://htmldog.com/

 

Good for web trends and articles:

Site point

 

For firefox users at the moment they have an add on which is a html reference guide and they are throwing in a free Ebook worth 6 quidish to boot just for downloading.

 

I suppose when I'm not feeling to lazy I will collate a bunch of resources for learning different thing and share with my beloved community.

 

So I've nattered on a bit so I guess the least I can do is link these things:

 

Web servers: Php, apache, mysql:

 

Xampp

Server 2go

 

Development environment:

Notepad++

 

Javascript frameworks:

 

Jquery

MooTools

 

Firefox addons:

 

Codeburner

Web developer tool bar

Firebug

 

I'll probably post a complete list of resources at some point in the future.

 

That's an incredibly useful list of sites and tools, thanks. It's a shame that I didn't know about Xampp. The book I am using focuses a lot on jQuery and I will be learning about it over the weekend. The next 200 pages are dedicated to it. jQuery makes Javascript really appealing. I will look into Mootools and the book also mentions Yahoo, Prototype and Dojo.

 

I've never heard of a CMS before, so it is interesting that you and Shorty have brought that up. The fact that I've never heard about one before makes me feel really dumb. Do you guys have any advice on what to use or how to set up a CMS for a web site?

Edited August 14, 2009 by Pyxis

[Noodleman]

There are definatly other compilers out there for C# although we use Visual Studio 2008 at work. I can do a bit of C# and Java although not much. Im much better and more interested in SQL though, and it's far more likely to ge the ladies hot under the collar :P

[Ten10]

Well CMS' are pretty easy to use when you get your head around them. Well I lied, some are easy some have a massive learning curve. But basically it works by you working your template around some set framework in a Content management system (CMS) that way each time you make a page everything is auto populated for your all the code and css, and you won't have to write all the code for each page you make as the CMS handles all that.

 

(sorry is this all sounds confusing its late and I can't think too clearly)

 

CMS' make it easy for people without knowledge of html to create webpages, as they are given a microsoft word like interface to create new pages from.

 

Some notable CMS' are Joomla, Drupal, Mambo, typo3, I could go on forever.

 

But the ones that I would recommend just because of how easy they are to use are:

 

Modx

SilverStripe

Wordpress -- Really for blogs but some people have hacked it into a CMS.

 

First of all these are open source so that means they are free to use, distribute etc.

 

Set up process takes a short while but I will spoiler it to save space. I'll be giving a method for xampp.

 

1. Download and install Xampp preferably in the root of a drive for example C:/

2. Open the Xampp folder and run the start.exe. If your firewall cries about anything just accept.

3. Open your web browser and type localhost. You should be taken to an Xampp confirmation page to say everything is working, yay!

4. Unzip your preferred CMS. Rename the folder to something memorable, e.g instead of modx_3.2.21 as the file folder name rename the folder to just modx.

5. Copy the folder to the htdocs folder in the Xampp folder.

6. Type in your web browser localhost/[name of folder for cms]

7. Install and enjoy.

 

 

 

If this doesn't make any sense I'll worry about it in the morning.

[Shorty]

I code sites onto the Joomla CMS, it's not too difficult a transition from hardcoding, it's free and open source and it's perfect if you want to make a site for your client to easily be able to keep up to date. Also I second the reccomendation for Web Developers Toolbar. These days I wouldn't code my CSS with anything else.

[Ten10]

I agree shorty Joomla is great, but I wouldn't say its good for first timers as the whole category and section thing might be too confusing for some. But I love the amount of extensions it has, I don't think any other cms can compete on that front. And there are tons of templates. I would say to anyone looking to get into CMS' is to try them all out for yourself and stick with what you feel comfortable starting out with.

[Wesley]

Yeah, choosing what language or software to use could be likened to an artist choosing what materials to use to paint a picture. It is interesting to know what people are learning, how they are learning it and what their preferences are.

 

Do you like C#? My gf is an IT executive/software engineer and she uses it and scoffs at people using Javascript as if it is out dated. I'd really like to know what it can be used for and how, but I bet that would involve learning it at some point. When you use C#, do you need to use Visual Web Developer? I find Visual Web Developer fascinating, but it seems like they expect you to either know C# or VB to take full advantage of it.

 

Well I get on alright with C# but to be honest I am an overall programming beginner so I wouldn't know how it compares to other languages. I also use it in the XNA framework, so all the really hard stuff is there for me (it already has code for loading content, handling graphics card stuff, etc). So your girlfriend would most definitely scoff at me.

 

I use Visual Studio 2008 for the programming though. And then run the programs just on my PC or test stuff out on my Zune.

 

Programming is something that really confuses me though; no matter how much I learn I feel like it's nothing. But it's so fun!

[The Lillster]

If your interesting in developing dynamic websites, I suggest you check out something called Django.

 

It's a web framework, built on Python (Python is really easy for beginners).

 

You can create decent dynamic websites, really fast and easy.

 

Some sites that use Django are http://www.playfire.com and http://www.giantbomb.com

 

The official website of Django is: http://www.djangoproject.com - It includes a setup tuturial to help you get started.

 

By the way, I thought you're classified as a Nerd when your really interested in Science and a Geek when you're really interested in Computer stuff?

Edited August 17, 2009 by The Lillster