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Primers for Entering The World Of Web Development?

Posted by Cliff on from the welcome-to-the-web-watch-out-for-spiders dept.

SecretAsianMan asks: "In the early days of the Web, being a webmaster required only a basic knowledge of HTML and some skill in graphics. Many programmers, myself included, scoffed at so-called 'web programming', considering it highly unworthy of the name. While we were busy scoffing, the Web grew up. Today's Web is much more than a collection of static HTML documents; it is dynamic, interactive, and filled with enough buzzwords to make your head spin. I'm considering retargeting myself to web development in order to open up more job possibilities. What should I learn, and in what order? What is the best method to fast-track into web development?"

11 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. SQL by brlewis · · Score: 2

    The most important skill you need to learn if you're going to build database-driven web sites is SQL. If you learn how to massage the data into the form you want before you present it, you'll save yourself a lot of work, and likely have a better-performing app as well.

    SQL has been around a long time and is not going away. It's more important to learn it deeply than to learn any of the plethora of languages out there for tying databases into the web, even mine.

    1. Re:SQL by larien · · Score: 2
      I agree completely. I've done some web development (PHP under Apache, FWIW) and the database was the glue to the whole system, storing user information and all the details in it.

      Whether you're using Perl, PHP, ASP, Java, JSP, Python or any other language, the backend database is the most important aspect of what you are working with and the SQL statements are identical under each language.

      It's worth being aware, however, that you can generally get by with simple SELECT, INSERT, DELETE and UPDATE commands; outer joins and their ilk are probably less necessary, but can save a lot of programming work if you get them right.

      Finally, learn what foreign keys are! They will save the integrity of your database and save a butt-load (imperial) of sanity checks in your program! This was one of my main drives to upgrade PostgreSQL when 7.0 came out as it was, IIRC, the first to support foreign keys.

      As an aside, you may not have to understand how to be a DBA. Where I work, we have "infrastructure" and "applications". Infrastructure manage the OS and Oracle DBA stuff (installation, tweaking init paramaters and user creation) while the applications people create the databases, create tables and populate them with data. If you fit into the 'applications' part (which it sounds like you want to), you just need to know where the database is and how to access it.

  2. 3. The Network Dude way: by Ramses0 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Agreed with the prior comment.

    Although I feel obligated to add another job-type: The network dude that keeps apache, the mailserver, and php running on multiple virtual domains with inter-server databases and backup systems. They're important too. :^)=

    3. The Network Dude:
    4: Set up your own [linux/windows 2000 server edition] box
    5: Install [Apache/IIS], [PHP/ASP/JSP], and [MySQL/PostgreSQL/MSSQL/Oracle] onto it.
    6: Read all about TCP/IP protocols, DNS, MX-Records, routes, routers, etc.
    7: Read all about your webserver, and how to keep it secure
    8: Learn awk, sed, and perl.

    One of these routes will cost you $1000+, the other will cost you $0.00+ :^)=

    --Robert

    1. Re:3. The Network Dude way: by SecretAsianMan · · Score: 2

      One of these routes will cost you $1000+, the other will cost you $0.00+

      Indeed. People get so caught up in the free-as-in-speech aspect of OSS/FS that they tend to forget about the implications of the free-as-in-beer aspect. Because such qulity software is available at no charge, I am open to educational opportunities that otherwise would be out of my financial reach.

      An interesting note: when I submitted the article, my last sentence was "Please, no Microsoft 'technologies'.". While I'm quite pleased that my article got accepted, I find it somewhat ironic that this part was censored by people who speak out against censorship.

      --

      Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.

    2. Re:3. The Network Dude way: by Lancer · · Score: 2
      An interesting note: when I submitted the article, my last sentence was "Please, no Microsoft 'technologies'.". While I'm quite pleased that my article got accepted, I find it somewhat ironic that this part was censored by people who speak out against censorship.

      Unless perhaps the idea was to make the question more generally useful to the /. audience. It's called editorial license, and in this particular case it made sense.

      As one who does web design/publishing/programming in a LAMP (great term!) environment as part of my myriad other duties in a school district, it's very interesting to me to see what else is available and used in "the real world". I'm glad the question was generalized a bit.

      My tuppence...

      --
      Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx
  3. Get your head around XML by dmorin · · Score: 2

    If you can internalize what XML is and what it's good for, you'll have a good jump on the future of web technologies like XSL, JSP, SOAP, web services, etc... I know programmers with years of experience who still ask me to explain why XML is any better than just rolling your own file format.

    --
    www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
  4. Re:Learn HTML by cloudmaster · · Score: 2

    You forgot the most important one: faster downloads & faster rendering. Good, hand-written HTML usually has fewer pieces of extraneous code in place and has better optimized tags. That's less data for the viewer to download and less extra stuff for the browser to render. It may be minor, but it's real, and there are many cases where people still use, *gasp*, modems.

    Besides, if you can't write good clean HTML, then you're not a real web developer - you're a "web publisher".

  5. Re:Looking back on 5 years by irix · · Score: 2
    All and all, I find myself disallusioned by the overall medicrity that is accepted in web programming.

    This, and your whole post are pretty much dead on. I spent 5 years (1995 - 2000) doing web development, because when I came out of school that was what was getting hot.

    After 5 years the pace of change slowed down, I got tired of the amateur environment that was pervasive, and I missed C/C++.

    I am now back in front of nedit on Solaris writing C++ code, and I do web stuff (Perl, PHP) in my spare time. I'll likely do web-based programming for a living sometime again in the future, but I am not in any hurry for now.

    --

    Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
  6. In the real world, it appear to be... by ptomblin · · Score: 2

    Step 1: Sell your soul
    Step 2: Forget about standards and compatibility. If it works on the very latest version of IE on Windows, good enough. If it works only on your monitor and your client's monitor, good enough. It if requires 256Gb of RAM and a gigabit ethernet to load, that's fine too, as long as the client has one when you demo it to them.
    Step 3: Write stuff that requires fancy, obscure and proprietary plug-ins. Never mind if search engines can't index it, it's gotta be fancy, dammit.
    Step 4: Forget about content. It's image that matters, not content. Who cares if the pages don't say anything or the shopping cart has security holes out the whazoo, as long as the buttons are animated and the graphics use the entire colour pallete? It sure doesn't hurt Microsoft, so why should it hurt you?

    --
    The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
  7. Why Perl?!? by dustpuppy · · Score: 2

    Not disagreeing with you, but why the emphasis on Perl?

    I've found PHP to a lot easier to learn and understand and have not found a time (yet) when it couldn't meet my needs as a web developer.

    Just seeking examples why Perl is better to learn ....

  8. Re:Looking back on 5 years by Tony+Shepps · · Score: 2

    Right now, 50% of jobs are for Java and its variants, 40% Microsoft, and 10% Perl/PHP.


    Where you are. Where I am, the ratio is more like 30-70-0.

    (And I'm part of that last number.)