Where to learn web development?

[putinwork]

I'm looking to take some action but would love to get pushed in the right direction since this is such a broad topic.

I have very minimal experience with web development, like almost none. However, I'm not scared to learn and have done so in the past (made my own website with wordpress overnight with no prior web experience at all).

Can someone point me in the right direction of any online courses or places where I can start to learn web development?

I'm looking to explore some of my website ideas that would require knowing how to create a database and pulling information from it, as well as having social media integration into it etc etc.

I know there has been a thread on learning to write code, vs learning to write copy and outsource writing code but I am a believer in at least understanding the basics and intermediate knowledge (I know being an expert in it will take years of experience and that part could be outsourced).

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

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[Brendan60Pilot]

I agree with you about at least being able toarticulate what you need, and understand what your programmer is doing. I am jamming right along in Codecademy.com It's pretty awesome, great interface. There is Rubymonk.com and Codeavengers.com as well. I really got hooked on it. but knowing how it works, and actually being able to innovate something is another thing.

Good luck either way!

 

[TheFinBin]

Best of luck as you try to figure all of this out. I took it upon myself to learn to code this year as well after years of mulling it over. To be frank, WordPress and learning to code are pretty different. With WordPress, if you don't know how to code, you're learning how to use the themes, plugins, and widgets effectively. Learning to actually code those themes, plugins, widgets -- or at least be able to customize / manipulate them -- is a very different story. You may know this already, but I thought I'd clarify for you anyway.

If you want to really learn to code from the ground up, I suggest Harvard's CS50. You can take it for free here: https://www.cs50.net/. It has all of the lectures, problem sets, tutorial videos, etc. I am finishing it right now through edX - https://www.edx.org/courses - but it's actually closed now (as of April 2013). They should offer it again in the Fall. But, the class will kick your butt and really help you THINK like a programmer. Believe me, it is very difficult (at least it was for me). LOL. You will start with C (which you use for the majority of the semester), then get into PHP, MySQL (databases), HTML, CSS, and some Javascript. Basically, if you understand C, it will make it that much easier to understand the logic behind the rest of the languages. Think - conditional statements like if/else, boolean expressions (true/false), loops, etc.

Hope this helps!

- Dave

 

[TheFinBin]

For putinwork and anybody else viewing this thread, I recently completed One Month Rails -- http://OneMonthRails.com and you can also find it on Skillshare. Great class. It basically helps you put together your own Pinterest. Also, there is Michael Hartl's RoR Tutorial, which walks you through how create your own Twitter. Very cool stuff that will give you a good foundation. Here's the other site - Learn Web Development with the Ruby on Rails Tutorial

 

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[odai]

I'm a self-taught web developer. I know HTML, CSS, PHP, Ruby on Rails, MySQL, Ajax, and probably some other acronyms I'm forgetting.

My #1 piece of advice would be to learn by doing. Creating a website is so cheap, there's no reason not to. If you don't have already have a web host, Host Gator's shared hosting is wonderful for what it costs ($10 or less per month.

As far as domain registration, I highly recommend Dynadot, they're the best I've worked with. If you don't have a PO Box and business phone, get their $2 privacy service, it will prevent your Whois information from being publicly visible (research whois on Google, you need to understand it).

One caveat about Dynadot's domain privacy - your full name will be listed on the public Whois record. This is better than what others (like GoDaddy) do, where they put their own name as the owner, because you legally own the domain if there's ever a dispute. However, if you don't want your real name associated with a site, better choose GoDaddy or someone else.

I would recommend getting one domain for playing around with, and a separate domain for each business idea you create.

Copy Others

Here's the best way to discover new techniques: If you're using Chrome, right-click on something, and choose 'Inspect Element' from the menu. A console will pop up, showing the HTML code on the left, and CSS code to the right. You may have to play around to understand this tool, but it's awesome - whenever I see something cool I don't know how to do on a website, I inspect it and make a mental note if I ever want to do that myself.

A recent example: Check out the cool see-through menu on Loyola's website. How did they make it transparent like that? I didn't know that was possible, but now I know how to do it. I'm sure I'll do it on one of my sites eventually.

I think every major browser has similar ability, at least I know Firefox and Safari do. They may call them something different, but the functionality should be there.

W3 Schools

An excellent website for self-study is W3 Schools. They have lessons you can work through, and I recommend doing that. But they're also a great reference.

Example: I want to use the CSS 'box-shadow' effect, but I don't remember the correct syntax. Go to Google, search 'CSS box shadow', W3 is usually the first result. Skim the page to jog my memory, and off we go. This is a great tool, because there are thousands of CSS properties, I doubt you could memorize them all.

Work with WordPress

Building WordPress stuff is a great way to get your feet wet once you understand the basics.

Develop a child theme to start. Then, develop a WordPress theme from scratch (you'll have to understand things like the Template Hierarchy, forcing you to start learning how the WordPress engine works). Then, develop a plugin, using PHP.

Another useful thing I did was volunteer on the WordPress.org support forums. Helping others with their problems made me work with situations I would never have encountered on my own. Things like weird viruses, bad web hosts, people running hundreds of plugins at once... Time consuming and no money, but worth it for me in knowledge.

NIKE

Just do it. Create, create, create. Seriously, I've taken plenty of computer courses, and 99% of what I know I learned outside of the classroom. 90% was learned outside of books.

Final thought - I'm 20, and I've been doing this since I was about 15. I wasn't very serious about it, a focused person could probably have learned this knowledge in 2 years. Still, it may make more sense to pay someone else to handle this stuff and focus on sales instead. I'm glad I have the knowledge, but if I was starting over, I'd probably learn sales instead.