which language/program for web development

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Hiya,

I'm doing comp science at uni, about to start 2nd year and I need to build a website as I'm doing a year in industry and its useful for me to have one.

I have experiance a bit of experiance doing websites (although our uni web course is this year hence my lack of great knowledge) in notepad etc, but I'd rather do it a quicker way if possible.

So two questions:

Should I use any particular web page generator or do by notepad.

If I want to have nice effects and it to look good what language should I use on top of html or is just frames that is relatively easy? (for example I think this web page looks pretty good custompc and ocuk looks pretty good))

Hope those questions make sense

Thanks
 
I'd personally use a more advanced text editor such as Notepad++ or PitPad, as these offer syntax highlighting, tabbed documents etc.. Obviously Dreamweaver/Other Adobe products are great tools, but it really depends on the time period in which you have to do the project. They can be great to aid in webdesign/development, but to be of the best use existing knowledge of XHTML/CSS/Javascript and general webdesign is needed really.

Language wise I'd get upto scratch with XHTML standards, CSS2/3 and learn Javascript for interactive menus and smooth effects. For dynamic content PHP would be the way forward, all possible options but depends on your requirements and brief. For webdesign I'd use Photoshop/ImageReady.

W3Schools has some great tutorials and example code.
 
Thanks for the reply and the link to w3chools I was trying to remember the site with amazing tutorials which I'd used before.

As for the dreamweaver/adobe stuff any particular recommendation?

Thanks
 
I would suggest Dreamweaver and use it in "split" mode.

I know some folks will lambast me for suggesting that and say "Nooooo......hand code it in notepad yourself" but I dont, to be honest, subscribe to that way of thinking. Just my 2 cents and opinion though. :p

I've recently moved on from DW8 to CS 3 and I'm finding it very interesting indeed.

Spry can save lots of time and is quite a handy wee tool. :cool:

Couple of useful sites for Dreamweaver stuff:-

http://www.dreamweaverclub.com/

http://www.dmxzone.com/
 
Draeger said:
I would suggest Dreamweaver and use it in "split" mode.

I know some folks will lambast me for suggesting that and say "Nooooo......hand code it in notepad yourself" but I dont, to be honest, subscribe to that way of thinking. Just my 2 cents and opinion though. :p

I've recently moved on from DW8 to CS 3 and I'm finding it very interesting indeed.

Spry can save lots of time and is quite a handy wee tool. :cool:

Couple of useful sites for Dreamweaver stuff:-

http://www.dreamweaverclub.com/

http://www.dmxzone.com/
:eek: Dont listen to this man he is clearly insane due to recommending DW :p
I personally use pspad its nice and clean has highlighting and is generally easy to use, I then use photoshop for my graphics although im crap at them :o
This is my work in progress at the moment http://www.elliottdesigns.co.uk
 
blitz2163 said:
*forums going slighty nuts on me*

Same 'ere, had that happen a few times in the past couple of days.

As I said, just my opinion. I'm a bit of a newbie to web design myself ( I have only been doing it since March this year ) and I find DW to be perfect for me at the moment for what I need it to do for me.

I'll prolly move on at some stage and do things differently, but for now, it does what it says on the tin. :cool:

Most recent site I did with Dreamweaver ( An updated site from one I did previously using Namo Web Editor, which is quite frankly an awful WYSIWYG web design prog!!! ) :-

www.firstdriving.co.uk
 
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Dreamweaver is just bloatware, its got too much stuff in it that isn't at all useful, i think its definitely aimed at the weekend web developers who make sites about their cats and their favorite football team. WYSIWYG editors hold you back, you wont learn with a wysiwyg editor, you will start to take it for granted, and will find it hard to give up, iv been there and done that, and when i saw the light it was glorious.

another vote for PSPad here, its light-weight, comes with useful features, has support for many, if not all, popular web syntax, is extremely configurable and very easy to backup your configuration files if you need to format, and has built in FTP to edit directly on remote files.

I use photoshop for the design of the site, and image creation, and illustrator for creating logos.

Seen as your new to the game, you might wanna check out Ruby on Rails, its an alternative to the commonly used PHP or ASP, but unlike PHP and ASP, RoR actually excites me, its different, its better, its simply amazing.
 
Personally I would use a decent text editor rather than DW, as it will give you a lot better experience in CSS tags and their effects rather than having auto generated messy code.

W3Schools is excellent for tutorials however it isn't comprehensive, somethings you will have to look elsewhere. My second stop is usually www.htmldog.com.

Javascript is defintely useful to know for more jazzy interactive features, its use is growing more and more with the new found popularity in "ajax". However remember to always include a measures that dont rely on javascript as some people have it turned off, and some use accessibility tools that aren't compatible with it.

Once you have a good understanding of HTML 4.01, XHTML, CSS and javascript, move onto dynamic content with PHP, ASP or JSP. My personal choice is ASP as I code C#, you will have to see for yourself which is best.
 
Boov said:
Dreamweaver is just bloatware, its got too much stuff in it that isn't at all useful

Absolute nonsense to be quite honest. :cool:

Yes the code generated through DW can end up being somewhat "messy", but run a DW created site through a Validator afterwards and its easily corrected.

Read the OP's first post in this thread again.

I honestly find it intriguing when I read responses to threads such as these.

We get many different views that fall into different "camps".

Sure, if you can code and be confident just using some text editor, fair enough.

But if you are just starting out in web design, a WYSIWYG editor of whatever choice can be a helpful learning tool.

For a newcomer, to recommend that DW be dismissed as "bloatware" is not correct IMO.

Everyone has to start somewhere and if they find a WYSIWYG editor fits their bill, then so be it, fair play to them.

Fair play too, to those that can just fire up a text editor and code away. Wish I could do that too, but for now I'm quite happy using a WYSIWYG prog.
 
Draeger said:
Absolute nonsense to be quite honest. :cool:

Yes the code generated through DW can end up being somewhat "messy", but run a DW created site through a Validator afterwards and its easily corrected.

Read the OP's first post in this thread again.

I honestly find it intriguing when I read responses to threads such as these.

We get many different views that fall into different "camps".

Sure, if you can code and be confident just using some text editor, fair enough.

But if you are just starting out in web design, a WYSIWYG editor of whatever choice can be a helpful learning tool.

For a newcomer, to recommend that DW be dismissed as "bloatware" is not correct IMO.

Everyone has to start somewhere and if they find a WYSIWYG editor fits their bill, then so be it, fair play to them.

Fair play too, to those that can just fire up a text editor and code away. Wish I could do that too, but for now I'm quite happy using a WYSIWYG prog.

I've personally never used a wysiwg editor and think im better off for it.

wysiwyg editors give a good boost in ability and productivity for a learner but as time goes on someone who learnt through hard coding html and css in a text editor will quickly surpass a purely wysiwyg user.

Imo ofc :)
 
Dreamweaver. Don't use the WYSIWYG bit though, code it yourself. If you do use the WYSIWYG bit, *ALWAYS* go back into the code and tidy it up.

It has built-in FTP, great syntax highlighting and awesome code hints.
 
Also remember when you do your modules in web design you will need to use one of the notepad type programs because il almost guarentee anything like dreamweaver will be banned and you will fail the module if they find you have used them
 
I use notepad2 myself. Great little program.

As some people have said, a WYSIWYG editor is great for starting out but you'll probably find that you'll learn a lot more a lot quicker doing it by hand. It's really not that difficult. Read some tutorials. Once you understand the basics, go to a css 'inspiration' site such as cssbeauty.com and when you find a site or particular part of a page you like, look at the code and see how they did it.

That's how I taught myself long ago.
 
Eriedor said:
W3Schools is crap for tutorials. Go to www.htmldog.com now.
fix'd

Use any old text editor (or code editor with basic features) and learn HTML/CSS from HTMLDog. Then you can move onto more pressing subject matter (which probably won't be that pressing as you're taking comp sci) - but first get the basics down.
 
i started developing about six years ago now, and its taken me up-untill about three years ago to stop using dreamweaver, i got comfortable using it. it was always handy to just click on the Design tab, insert a table, cut some cells up, make the layout, then add some images. Which resulted in me, after three years of hobby design, not knowing the correct syntax to make a table... nor what was contained in the <head> section.

i got comfortable with DW, and found it hard to stop using, but since i have, my knowledge has improved ten fold.

if you can potentially skip wasted time, learning nothing because DW does it all for you, then the only outcome is yourself becoming a better web developer.
 
Ok tips to make first web site.

A) Draw what you want the site to look like in Photoshop (or similar, GIMP etc). As in literally what it's gonna look like, almost as if it's a screen shot of the end result.

B) Work out how you're going to split the site up, ie tables? css layers etc

C) Do you want dynamic stuff? products? news feeds etc, if so you'll prob want a data base.

D) Design database if C is true.

E) Write web site with absolutely no styling, ie just black text on white background. If you're completely new yes use something like dreamweaver, you'll come to learn that it isn't the nicest way to implement a site but for a beginner it defo is a good starting block. Chances are as you get better, you#ll look back on DW implemented pages and cry and want to redo them. But hey you can worry about that later! As for languages, shtml and css if non dynamic (shtml as it allows server side includes (look that up) handy for menus and common elements). If dynamic i'd prob go php as it's free, cheap, and there's tonnes of free support.

F) Make step E pretty with tables and Css (Zen garden for ideas?)

G) Cheer!


PS. Notepad++ for the win!! (obv large scale dev I use netbeans/eclipse)
 
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although i have nothing against DW, and quite like the built in ftp and all those little bits that make it just a tad easier... i still end up writing all my stuff in ultraedit... tried other apps but always go back to trusty ultraedit :)

EDIT: saying that tho you know, never tried notepad++ - anyone recon this is better than ultraedit? can it do column editing (stupidly useful tool) and macros?
 
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Eriedor said:
Javascript is defintely useful to know for more jazzy interactive features, its use is growing more and more with the new found popularity in "ajax". However remember to always include a measures that dont rely on javascript as some people have it turned off, and some use accessibility tools that aren't compatible with it.

Yeh, don't forget to cater for those who have it disabled.

Also don't go overkill, I don't wanna be seeing no stars following my cursor or anything like that :p
 
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