learning web development

AHarvey · 18 May 2010 at 03:34

Hi all,

My brother is kind of just floating about in his life, no idea what he wants to do and is stuck in the pub trade. he wants to get into IT so he has some prospects but has no idea where to start.

I've told him I will put together some training stuff + software for him to learn web development.

I am just going to list the stuff I will suggest to him and if you can suggest anything I have missed or any other suggestions I will be grateful.

Start off with the basics:

Xhtml & CSS
Notepad++ so he learns the code
graphics package
Filezilla + some free webspace.

then, if he gets to grips with that and is enjoying it, move on to:

PHP & javascript
MySQL
web packages like Wordpress & Joomla
CMS
Experience with other software such as dreamweaver (would help with CV)

I've got quite a few books/ebooks to help including one or two Head First books.

I know there is the W3schools and HTML dog websites as well.

Am I missing anything?

UncleRuckus · 18 May 2010 at 11:29

Ajax too I would say.

Also http://www.tizag.com/ tutorials are very easy to understand.

_TubbZ_ · 18 May 2010 at 19:59

Maybe a proper programming language too like C, java or C# as that'll help a lot with php and as a lot of self taught php coders code is disgusting (according to some thread from a while back).

UncleRuckus · 18 May 2010 at 20:33

_TubbZ_ said:
Maybe a proper programming language too like C, java or C# as that'll help a lot with php and as a lot of self taught php coders code is disgusting (according to some thread from a while back).

Amen brother, C# really helped me out.

Izi · 18 May 2010 at 20:46

i think there are more high paid asp.net jobs out there, i would just learn ASP.NET with C# personally.

I started with classic ASP, went to PHP, then moved to ASP.NET - moving to .NET was painful because it is so different to scripting languages but I wouldn't go back now.

You can download all the tools you need for ASP.NET for free:

http://www.microsoft.com/express/

Visual Studio Express and SQL Server 2008 Express = set to go.

Just my 2p

sandeep · 18 May 2010 at 20:48

UncleRuckus said:
Amen brother, C# really helped me out.

+1

I self-taught myself PHP and whenever I made programs it was the biggest mess ever!

Learning the software development principles and C, C++, C# and Java helped structuring my programs in a way.

Now I think of myself of a coder that know's his way around and when it comes to PHP, making programs are put in mind of a professional thought and it makes them that much more efficient to process.

sandeep · 18 May 2010 at 20:49

Izi said:
i think there are more high paid asp.net jobs out there, i would just learn ASP.NET with C# personally.

I started with classic ASP, went to PHP, then moved to ASP.NET - moving to .NET was painful because it is so different to scripting languages but I wouldn't go back now.

You can download all the tools you need for ASP.NET for free:

http://www.microsoft.com/express/

Visual Studio Express and SQL Server 2008 Express = set to go.

Just my 2p

As an added note, IIS 7 + ASP.NET will help so you don't need to look for an online web server.

UncleRuckus · 18 May 2010 at 21:13

Also getting into OOP as soon as possible will help tremendously, I left it too long and it took me a damn long time changing the way I think about structure.