which language/program for web development

I think Dreamweaver is fine if you want to start knocking out quite a lot of cheap sites - could save you some time to draw it on screen, chop it into tables, and upload it.

I taught myself HTML & CSS so that I could do SEO. With SEO you never know what the cusotmer site will be, html? php? asp? if you don't know HTML there's no chance of doing anything.
 
Boov said:
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.
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I disagree to be honest :p

Dreamweaver can do it all for you... badly. It doesn't mean you have to let it do it all for you - it simply has the ability to do it for you. You still have the option of doing it for yourself, and that is obviously the better option.

There's nothing I make in Dreamweaver that I couldn't make without it.

Of course these other programs could be better than Dreamweaver for one reason or another. I just don't like it when people say Dreamweavers bad just because it can do things for you, and because it has a lot of 'bloatware' in it - really, I load Dreamweaver up in the morning and close it in the evening... the bloatedness of it doesn't affect me at all, and every now and then these extra 'bloated' bits actually prove to be helpful!

Whatever application you use, it doesn't make you a better coder just because your using "this program" rather than "that program". It's how you make the code and how well the code is made that matters ;) If you find one program more helpful than the other, then use it! It's totally your own opinion. Just don't ever depend on the program to do your code. There's a big difference between needing a program and using a program :p

You should be able to do a website in MS Notepad if you need to. Of course, that'd be a waste of time actually doing a site in MS Notepad with all these more helpful applications available, but you should still be able to do it - it proves you don't need a program to do anything for you.
 
Dreamweaver can do it all for you... badly. It doesn't mean you have to let it do it all for you - it simply has the ability to do it for you. You still have the option of doing it for yourself, and that is obviously the better option.
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that was my point, that as long as the option is there to have the program 'help you out', its always going to be tempting to let it, which is exactly what i did for three years, and as a result had a very scattered knowledge of HTML.

dreamweaver is packed with features, cant deny that, some more useful than others, i just feel that if you become reliant on these 'features', then it can hinder your knowledge and understanding of the medium, and as soon as dreamweaver isn't available, you panic, and don't know what to do.

it just might be a better and more productive learning path to not use an application that 'helps you out' so much, jumping in at the deep end so to speak.
 
Yeah, I suppose it depends on the person really :) If you're the kind of person who finds it difficult doing something the hard way (coding) when there's an easy way (wizards/wysiwyg) then Dreamweaver shouldn't be for you... But, if you can easily stick to code view without feeling the need to take shortcuts, then I'd always recommend Dreamweaver :p It certainly hasn't got me into any bad coding practises, but that's cos I always code things myself.

I did come from FrontPage, though - many many years ago (about 6/7 years ago now!), but before that I was using MS Notepad with my cousin teaching me HTML :p And before that was MS publisher... that made really bad websites.

*sigh* memories... was around the same time I was obsessed with Sub7 and leet speek :o Old school
 
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Each to his own, of course. ;)

I like Dreamweaver and will continue to use it for most probably a good while.

I will eventually move on to something else, most people do I suppose.

I first started using Namo Web Editor which was awful when I look back on it and then tried MS Publisher which wasn't much better ( again, only in my own opinion ).

As I said, DW does what it says on the tin. Using it in Split design mode I have actually learned more about coding than I would have thought possible using a WYSIWYG editor, which is a bonus. I like how to alter and fix things, if you get stuck using DW's GUI you can go into the code and change it by hand without swapping out to another program or text editor. Very handy.

:cool:
 
tsinc80697 said:
OSX - skEdit by far the best!
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WRONG! TextMate & Transmit :p

Don't use Dreamweaver on windows - in fact, if you can at all help it, don't use Windows or Dreamweaver at all. Don't listen to the people advocating it - it makes you lazy, and if you use it as a means to learn things, it teaches you bad habits. If you have to use Windows, install XAMPP as a nice easy web server install and e text editor. Ultimately, you might want Filezilla as well, but until you need to connect to remote servers, you won't need it :)

As far as languages go - HTML 4.01 Strict and/or XHTML 1.0, CSS, Javascript (for DOM mainly, but it's still good to learn) and PHP5 or ASP.NET. Personally, I use PHP5 and have no interest whatsoever in learning ASP.NET, but that's just preference. If you do choose PHP, the 5 is VERY important. Learn as much OOP as you can from the outset - you'll build much better-designed, scalable apps that way. You will also need some sort of database language - either MySQL (installed with XAMPP), or something like PostgreSQL.

Seeing as you're doing this for a uni course, you may or may not want to look into UML and database theory too.
 
You know while we're on it, another thing that's excellent is dual monitors. I can get so much more done, having say a database on one screen and code on the other, or the site on one screen and html on the other. If you ever wonder whether it's worth the investment for a second screen - the answer is yes, it is. Best £125 I ever spent :p
 
Cheers for all the replies keep em coming if you have any more advice.

I'm going to give dreamweaver a whirl see what it can do. I have hand coded 2-3 sites at school/college etc. I could do it in just notepad but maybe I'm just lazier than I was I want something to do it more quickly as notepad was a bit of a pain, if dreamweaver isn't for me I'll try notepad++ or ps pad as they seem quite popular.
furnace said:
I did come from FrontPage, though - many many years ago (about 6/7 years ago now!), but before that I was using MS Notepad with my cousin teaching me HTML :p And before that was MS publisher... that made really bad websites.
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I did my first web page in publisher as well that was really **** lol
 
Sic said:
Don't use Dreamweaver on windows - in fact, if you can at all help it, don't use Windows or Dreamweaver at all.
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What real difference does the OS make when it comes to knocking together a XHTML and CSS site?

furnace said:
You know while we're on it, another thing that's excellent is dual monitors. I can get so much more done, having say a database on one screen and code on the other, or the site on one screen and html on the other. If you ever wonder whether it's worth the investment for a second screen - the answer is yes, it is. Best £125 I ever spent
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I have to agree with this although I dont use dual monitors I use a 20" WS monitor at home and when I have to code on the normal square small monitors at uni it drives me up the wall not being able to have everything visable
 
First of all, find what web server the University is running the site on. If it is iis then chances are you'll have to do any scripting in ASP, and if it's Apache, then it's ASP.

Notepad++ here for all the scripting
CSS and Photoshop for the web-design
MySQL for any database unless you need to build with something very simple in which case Access is easiest.
 
cheers for replies guys another quick question ;), php or ruby on rails, I think they both look pretty good. I am taught php in dynamic web module would it be better to just do php or would doing rails help and give me better understanding?

Cheers
 
I'm Sorry but all the anti DW stuff is crap. I work as a web developer in a company that has separate programming and design teams. The designers where i work all use DW and not the wysiwyg but the code mode where the CSS prosperities etc are in nice little tables allowing them to edit it quickly and organise the information. It is an aid to productivity that allows you to work quicker.

Have a look around the internet for 'signs your software project will fail' and always near the top is one stating the designers/developer doesn#t believe in IDEs. I use notepad++ to edit XML files etc or take a quick peak at a file but anything more serious calls for an IDE. They aren't bloat wear but productivity aids.

If your looking to move into web development properly that look at the likes of DW and Visual Studio Web Developer etc it is what is used in industry.
 
I use vim for my webdev (either ruby/rails or python/django at the moment). HTML is straightforward so there is no point in using an IDE/GUI Editor if your only doing that or a scripting language.

jmhduck said:
cheers for replies guys another quick question ;), php or ruby on rails, I think they both look pretty good. I am taught php in dynamic web module would it be better to just do php or would doing rails help and give me better understanding?

Cheers
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What you got to remember here is rails is a framework (MVC) while php is a language. I moved out of PHP development 4 years ago to ruby/python for my client sites and there is no way I would go back. It depends on what you want to do really. You really got to know ruby to a decent level in order to take full advantage of the rails framework.
 
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Una said:
What you got to remember here is rails is a framework (MVC) while php is a language. I moved out of PHP development 4 years ago to ruby/python for my client sites and there is no way I would go back. It depends on what you want to do really. You really got to know ruby to a decent level in order to take full advantage of the rails framework.
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Cheers I think I'll go for php and then look at ruby on rails once I'm used to php.
 
DreamWeaver is a serious development tool with a lot of excellent features, but it is not suitable for beginners (and by beginners I mean people who actually want to learn web development and aren't just after knocking together a quick page or two in a couple of minutes).

There are a number of reasons for this:
  • It masks what's actually going on behind the scenes if you stick to the design view.
  • It overwhelms you with options when you should be starting with the basics.
  • IT COSTS 360 QUID.

My IDE of choice is Eclipse - it's free, it's regularly updated and improved, and there are numerous plugins which cover everything I need (PDT (for PHP) / subclipse (for version control) / Aptana (for CSS+JS) / etc). If i'm just modding simple files then I'll use notepad++.

I've also heard great things of Textmate but with not having a Mac it's hard to substantiate the claims ;)
 
LazyManc said:
My IDE of choice is Eclipse - it's free, it's regularly updated and improved, and there are numerous plugins which cover everything I need (PDT (for PHP) / subclipse (for version control) / Aptana (for CSS+JS) / etc). If i'm just modding simple files then I'll use notepad++.

I've also heard great things of Textmate but with not having a Mac it's hard to substantiate the claims ;)
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Eclipse / Netbeans here. Notepad++ gets used a lot too though!!
 
In my opinion, Dreamweaver is the best HTML and server script development tool I've ever used. But, I started out just using notepad back in the day, and now thanks to my previous experience I know XHTML, CSS etc. of by heart.. I could code a whole dynamic website using notepad and not referencing anything, but I prefer to use DW (in code view ofcourse) because of all it's features - and I do use them all, especially the html/css tag autocomplete. You shouldn't be scared of such an editor, but you won't get the most out of it, unless you've done it the old skool way and learnt to code it all by hand, learn the languages, learn the syntax, learn how browsers behave. It's only then that I think you can use Dreamweaver to it's full potential. I could say more, but I'll leave it at that for now.
 
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