Thinking of developing a website as a hobby

mistercrabb · 29 Apr 2011 at 22:37

Sorry if this post is a bit vague..

At the moment I have very little to do in my spare time. I normally spend it lurking on forums etc and I think I should actually devote my time to something useful.
I was thinking of learning some form of web development with the long term goal of making a complex website.

Now, suppose I theoretically wanted to create Twitter from scratch.
My limited knowledge tells me that I would need to learn the following (or equivalent):
HTML
CSS
PHP
MYSQL

Am I right? Missed anything? Is this even feasible?
I taught myself C++ with little trouble, so I imagine I could pick this up quite fast.
If anyone has any useful pointers or would like to tell me I'm stupid, feel free.
Just looking for thoughts/experience really.

Especially shortcuts, for example can I just get a WYSIWYG editor to deal with the frontend and cut down on some HTML coding?

Cheers,
Rob

rwm24 · 29 Apr 2011 at 23:38

For more advanced sites you will also need to know Javascript and ajax.

I'm not sure how much of this is used on Twitter though, I don't use twitter myself.

I suggest you get some ebooks and start working on HTML/CSS first then PHP/MySQL and finally onto Java/Ajax.

I personally hate WTSIWYG editors, I started out by modifying templates until I learnt how to code them from scratch.

Vulcan · 29 Apr 2011 at 23:51

mistercrabb said:
Especially shortcuts, for example can I just get a WYSIWYG editor to deal with the frontend and cut down on some HTML coding?

I don't recommend it. I haven't used them in a long time, but last time I did I found the software made awfully messy code and tended to rely on the old style of development, using in-line styling and tables.

Today it's about CSS/XHTML, with the idea that all styling, whether it be on text, page structure or background images should all be in the CSS file, and for this I always just Notepad++ and then press F5 in the browser.

I also echo the above statement about Javascript, although not nessivery, it can offer some great and helpful features to an already made web page: http://docs.jquery.com/Tutorials:Live_Examples_of_jQuery

Tripnologist · 30 Apr 2011 at 02:34

rwm24 said:
I'm not sure how much of this is used on Twitter though, I don't use twitter myself.

Twitter definitely uses ajax.

I would learn html/css and then js/jquery (this would include ajax as well) and then a backend language such as php or C#.

PermaBanned · 30 Apr 2011 at 02:50

My experience with making a website for the sake of making a website is that the actual content often gets put to the side. Come up with a good plan first.

But really, just starting out i wouldn't even worry about PHP. You can make a great website with just HTML/CSS. That said, you can make a horrible website with PHP, MySQL, Java and Ajax. Hmm...

mistercrabb · 30 Apr 2011 at 09:16

Thanks guys, very useful comments.

As for content, I was planning on learning a few basics, then working out a design/plan and then learning the rest as I go along with it.

My (long term) plan will be to learn (X)HTML/CSS first, and then PHP/MYSQL. I'll stick Javascript in there somewhere too, probably in between CSS and PHP

Also, how does everyone feel about www.w3schools.com as a tutorial/reference resource?

Decelo · 30 Apr 2011 at 11:26

w3scools is a good place to get started, but don't use their word as final.
Some of the code they use is bad practice, check out http://w3fools.com/ which goes through why you need to be careful with w3schools.

http://net.tutsplus.com/ and http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/ have some really high standard tutorials on pretty much everything!

mistercrabb · 1 May 2011 at 19:13

Made a good start today, ran through the beginner HTML tutorials on http://htmldog.com/ which was recommended by w3fools.com for being a good intro tutorial website.

I also installed PHP/Mysql/phpmyadmin anyway, for no real reason.

So it's all looking good, gotta just crack on with HTML/CSS for now.

Thanks all!

Eagle-Eye · 1 May 2011 at 21:19

Okay a great site to look at is http://net.tutsplus.com/ they provide a wide range of tutorials. Considering you just learning these languages make sure read all about HTML5/CSS3 as that will become the standard sooner or later

PHP is actually very easy to learn, just don't fall into bad programming habits

Some good software if you need any (free): Netbeans (PHP), Filezilla, Notepad++.

Edit: Sorry didn't see Decelo's post

Those two websites he mentioned are very very good!

rwm24 · 1 May 2011 at 21:28

mistercrabb said:
Made a good start today, ran through the beginner HTML tutorials on http://htmldog.com/ which was recommended by w3fools.com for being a good intro tutorial website.

I also installed PHP/Mysql/phpmyadmin anyway, for no real reason.

So it's all looking good, gotta just crack on with HTML/CSS for now.

Thanks all!

I've heard good things about http://www.tizag.com/ but I haven't used it myself.

invisible · 1 May 2011 at 22:06

3dcandy · 2 May 2011 at 13:07

maybe looking at a decent cms could be an idea? You could learn from other templates, customise them and go from there. Integrating twitter et al could be just a plugin away then. Short term is faster, long term you have less control and would probably be less skilled.