I need some advice

mrbios · 7 Nov 2011 at 18:29

I want to get in to learning some form of web development, at the moment i can do the basics of HTML, PHP etc and i occasionally know what i'm looking at and what links to where when i look at a piece of code but i've never properly sat down and learnt the processes behind making a website.

What I'm essentially asking is, to make a website that's going to be used beyond the means of personal use is there (i know this sounds a bit simple but i have to ask) something like a checklist, a best practices order in which to do things like, domain name, layout and design, what to use be it PHP/ASP etc?

I want to try and do this properly and know what i need to know before i just dive into learning various code if you follow me?

If i'm making a website that will be used as a means of making money is there a particular system that works better than others? (no doubt there will be disagreements over this bit but i'm willing to listen)

Any help, advice or guidance appreciated of course

feedtheram · 7 Nov 2011 at 21:00

I'm in the process of building my first site coming from no real knowledge of anything - going ok so far and finding it pretty fun.

The first mistake i made was not learning CSS - then deciding to change my layout after making about 10 pages. CSS is really easy to learn so i would do that early.

I would be interested in what other people say here. I would imagine the first thing you need to decide is what the purpose of your site is and what it's going to do - this will tell you what you have to learn as far as coding.

It might sound stupid by i'm thinking of registering a domain just to play around with - maybe make a blog with my progress that no-one will ever read

fez · 7 Nov 2011 at 21:36

feedtheram said:
It might sound stupid by i'm thinking of registering a domain just to play around with - maybe make a blog with my progress that no-one will ever read

You may read it later once you have progressed and its nice to see a log of your progress sometimes.

mrbios · 8 Nov 2011 at 00:20

I already own this: http://somewhereinthebetween.co.uk/ (my friends holiday blog i setup for them, lucky buggers)

Though obviously with wordpress no REAL work goes in to it as it's all prebuilt and just a case of changing X setting for X to happen, i didn't really learn anything lol

I also created this www.archwayschool.net again a template based on umbraco (which i think is a pile of crap personally) all i generally do with that is edit html

So i've got some starting experience... if i start with CSS, my biggest problem to learning it is starting, i've never known where to start, any good guides for this? (starting is biggest hurdle in my opinion)