Please help an Noob

[SoundMan]

Hi Folks,

I final had enough and will be learning HTML,HTML5,CSS,PHP,Java-script,MYSQL

I desperately need into the Web development world.

I bought these books

PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide

Html And Css: Visual Quickstart Guide

Here's my questions and concerns, What programs free or paid should I be getting? I tried asking on stackoverflow but it got locked because of power hunger mods

I know this board is full of "REAL" Professionals that are web developers to help me

I currently have sent applications for the 2016 school year (UK & US Schools) and want an amazing understanding before attending school regarding programming . I was hoping to learn what programs typical teachers use during class for teaching too.


I just can't seem to understand the layout of a Ecommerce site, you have everything that seems straightforward.

<Heading/>
<Body/>
<Footer/>

Now why is the code put everywhere? I mean you drive a car it's a 1,Put on your seatbelt 2,Start the car 3,Reverse/Drive.

I've looked at sample code and just boggles my little mind, Jquery files go into the Footer instead of the <body/> then these lines of code are placed into the <Header/>

I unfortunately don't have anybody to ask for help

thanks for any advice.

 

[960design]

Hi Folks...

Hi.
Look up JSFiddle. Drop your code in and give us a link. You are taking a pretty hefty chunk, it may be better to get your head around just HTML5 and CSS first. Once you understand structure, then you can start making it do cool stuff with Javascript.

When you have those concepts understood fairly well, then make the plunge into server side languages, like PHP.

Using your car analogy: when you drive the code it all works the same. You use methods to putOnSeatbelt() and start() for example. The complex stuff is hidden from the user, just like the spark plug firing, complicated gearing, fuel distribution, ect. And that stuff is all over the car. Battery in the back, engine in the front, gearing in the middle.

It's best to ask a specific question instead of vague ones. We cannot really help with vague in a forum post.

 

[ocabj]

If you want to understand programming before entering a Computer Science major, I would not use web development as your entry into programming. Web development brings about a lot of semantics and structure that are way too specific to browser environments, and will just confuse someone who already isn't a moderate level programmer. It sounds like this is exactly what you're getting puzzled by at this point. HTML is just one markup language, which then makes calls to another markup (CSS) and also makes calls to external programs (e.g. JavaScript, PHP, or even C++ via CGI-BIN).

What you should do is just start writing standalone perl or php scripts on your Mac to do things like parse and or manipulate text files, or read and or write to your filesystem. Keep things simple. Just learn how to work your way around creating basic functions/subroutines, object classes, etc.

Note: Not sure if you're going to school for Computer Science, but CS is theory and math. Yes, they'll teach you to write code, but the reason why you learn code in CS is so you can learn theory, algorithms, data structures, automata, etc. Computer languages are simply tools, and often, most CS curriculums will utilize one specific object oriented language (C++ when I got my degree) as base language for most courses, with other languages used in other courses however the instructor saw fit (e.g. Lisp, Java, x86 assembly)

 

[Dubadai]

If you want to explore some coding and learn at the same time, hit up https://www.codecademy.com/learn

Fantastic stuff and you learn as you go!

 

[2457244]

You should first start with trying to understand the fundamentals.. How does a website/webpage work behind the scene in a browser. What do all the components do relative to each other and which of those components are essential for creating a website..

When you understand what HTML and CSS do relative to each other and what JavaScript or PHP can do, you get a far better picture of how websites are being created and that you can't just wave a magic wand or through some lines of code in X editor, press a button and you got a website.

I think buying books for learning the web is kinda boring in 2015. I mean if you're the type of person who can read a boring 500 pages book in 3 days and remember everything you just read go for it. IF you're not that type of guy I should say, go search for online learning examples. Books are kinda boring and filled with plain copy while online you often have live examples - video's where you see your author do stuff and you can try do the same in a window aside.

I think Lynda.com has great courses about this subject plus they also start of with the fundamentals.. Teaching you how a browser, server or database for example work. If you understand that every browser has a default stylesheet inside and not every browser has the same default stylesheet you understand why sometimes websites can look a little different depending on what platform you visit a website. Those topics should also got covered before you start learning which HTML(5) tags to use to create your website.

Start here..

First start with HTML.
http://www.lynda.com/HTML-tutorials/HTML-Essential-Training/170427-2.html

After learning HTML you should learn CSS.
http://www.lynda.com/Web-Interactive-CSS-tutorials/CSS-Fundamentals/80436-2.html

After that, JavaScript, PHP and maybe other stuff..

 

[superscape]

If you want to understand programming before entering a Computer Science major, I would not use web development as your entry into programming.

Absolutely agree with the above.

If you're interested in general programming in advance of starting a Computer Science degree then I'd suggest that some form of C (C++, Objective-C etc), or maybe Java or Python might be better starting points. Even better, find out what languages some of your preferred choice of course are taught in and make a start on learning the basics of those. Give them a ring/email and ask! Never hurts to look keen. ;-)

If you're determined to learn web design then that's fair enough and the lynda tutorials recommended above will probably help you. W3Schools also has some good tutorials covering the very basics. I think from the books you've got that you may be jumping in at the deep end. Get familiar with the basics from Lynda and w3schools, then maybe go back to your books.

 

[SoundMan]

If you want to understand programming before entering a Computer Science major, I would not use web development as your entry into programming. Web development brings about a lot of semantics and structure that are way too specific to browser environments, and will just confuse someone who already isn't a moderate level programmer. It sounds like this is exactly what you're getting puzzled by at this point. HTML is just one markup language, which then makes calls to another markup (CSS) and also makes calls to external programs (e.g. JavaScript, PHP, or even C++ via CGI-BIN).

What you should do is just start writing standalone perl or php scripts on your Mac to do things like parse and or manipulate text files, or read and or write to your filesystem. Keep things simple. Just learn how to work your way around creating basic functions/subroutines, object classes, etc.

Note: Not sure if you're going to school for Computer Science, but CS is theory and math. Yes, they'll teach you to write code, but the reason why you learn code in CS is so you can learn theory, algorithms, data structures, automata, etc. Computer languages are simply tools, and often, most CS curriculums will utilize one specific object oriented language (C++ when I got my degree) as base language for most courses, with other languages used in other courses however the instructor saw fit (e.g. Lisp, Java, x86 assembly)

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

I feel even more confused now; I was under the conclusion Computer programming was making programs (Windows/Mac) and not coding for websites. If that honestly is the case I will need to really think everything again.

When first doing research I’d gathered Web development was the course/career I needed. I was planning on getting my Graphic design degree too.

That's why Learning HTML,HTML 5,CSS,J Query was perfect.

again thanks for your reply.

 

[SoundMan]

You should first start with trying to understand the fundamentals.. How does a website/webpage work behind the scene in a browser. What do all the components do relative to each other and which of those components are essential for creating a website..

When you understand what HTML and CSS do relative to each other and what JavaScript or PHP can do, you get a far better picture of how websites are being created and that you can't just wave a magic wand or through some lines of code in X editor, press a button and you got a website.

I think buying books for learning the web is kinda boring in 2015. I mean if you're the type of person who can read a boring 500 pages book in 3 days and remember everything you just read go for it. IF you're not that type of guy I should say, go search for online learning examples. Books are kinda boring and filled with plain copy while online you often have live examples - video's where you see your author do stuff and you can try do the same in a window aside.

I think Lynda.com has great courses about this subject plus they also start of with the fundamentals.. Teaching you how a browser, server or database for example work. If you understand that every browser has a default stylesheet inside and not every browser has the same default stylesheet you understand why sometimes websites can look a little different depending on what platform you visit a website. Those topics should also got covered before you start learning which HTML(5) tags to use to create your website.

Start here..

First start with HTML.
http://www.lynda.com/HTML-tutorials/HTML-Essential-Training/170427-2.html

After learning HTML you should learn CSS.
http://www.lynda.com/Web-Interactive-CSS-tutorials/CSS-Fundamentals/80436-2.html

After that, JavaScript, PHP and maybe other stuff..

Wow thanks

The reason for the books was a better understanding, I'm not the typical book person. I'd rather someone teach me but finding those people don't exist for me unfortunately. I'd be fine paying $40-50 an hour for tutoring but where do you look?

I think often of a news story, where a man offered $100 to homeless man or teach him to code. He's now making a game for I-tunes.

I bought the unlimited package from www.ostraining.com and was a (neutral) experience.

The plan was getting a template and breaking down everything while reading books or watching videos. I still need a good coding program but what are my options.

thanks again.

 

[olup]

Wow thanks

The reason for the books was a better understanding, I'm not the typical book person. I'd rather someone teach me but finding those people don't exist for me unfortunately. I'd be fine paying $40-50 an hour for tutoring but where do you look?

I think often of a news story, where a man offered $100 to homeless man or teach him to code. He's now making a game for I-tunes.

I bought the unlimited package from www.ostraining.com and was a (neutral) experience.

The plan was getting a template and breaking down everything while reading books or watching videos. I still need a good coding program but what are my options.

thanks again.

There's tons of free online resources that teach you about html, css and javascript and whatever else you need, which eventually will include php or some type of content management system like Wordpress or Joomla.

Here are some that should get you going with HTML, CSS and JS
www.codeacademy.com
https://www.udacity.com/courses/web-development

For reference and explanations, the Mozilla Developer Network is a great resource, as well as CSS tricks
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/
http:css-tricks.com

If you're into youtube tutorials, there are large amounts of tutorials on web development/-design as well.

As for IDE's there are quite a few as well, some are free, some aren't.
A lot of people use Sublime Text or Atom. Then there's Netbeans and Brackets. Download some and give them a whirl and see which one you like best.

 

[960design]

I bought the unlimited package from www.ostraining.com and was a (neutral) experience.

Check out http://lynda.com it is free for 30 days. There are tons of foundation building skills.

If you just want a simple tutorial on building software check out this guy:

You can take literally take that code and place it in a webkit framework and have it deployed to iOS, MacOSX, TvOS. As long as you use best practices ( not implemented in the tutorial as it's mainly focused on simplicity Vs design ) your code will work across all platforms.

For high end, 1000s of objects moving in a 3D, multiplayer environment you'll have to use a more robust coding ( swift / metal for example ). But first just get something moving and interacting, that starts the magic.