3 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
3 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Starting guide 4 web development: to point you in the right direction, no matter what level you want

by mathmo
2 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
    • |
I just wrote out this advice for a childhood friend on Facebook, and I thought I'd share it with the wider WF community (though it is slightly NZ centric :p).

If you're completely new to website development, but you know you want to have a go it t this is the guide for you to point out the right initial steps to take along that path.

No matter if you wish only get the quickest and easiest site up for free, or you want to go all the way and make a job out of this. (hence the 3 sections, to target the three levels of aspiration: basic/mid/professional)


1) Ultra simple, basic, and cheap:

google sites, is free (plus optional domain name if you wish for about 10 bucks or more per year)
http://sites.google.com
Google Sites - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2) Something more professional, but more effort yet still very doable:

Wordpress (is opensource, thus free) plus hosting (from about NZ$10/month or less)
WordPress › Blog Tool and Publishing Platform
Web hosting - Hosting Now

3) You want to make a career out of this (or at least take it very seriously):

Learn HTML + CSS
Plus you will need to learn at least one programming language. So pick PHP (the most popular) or Ruby on Rails (in my opinion a vastly better and easier to learn language).
W3Schools Online Web Tutorials
try ruby! (in your browser)
Code School - RailsForZombies

Then you still need the tools. The best free combination for professional web development in my mind is:
Notepad++
Filezilla/FireFTP
Firebug
Netbeans
GIMP
#development #direction #guide #level #matter #point #starting #web #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author dixon
    I agree with most of that but you can't really say rails is 'better' than php. Yes it's easier to learn and personally I prefer developing using it but it's subjective and depends on the use case.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3955674].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author mathmo
    For sure, which programming language is "best" is a huge area of religious debate and enough for many more threads ;-)

    Hence why I thought I'd best leave it as two options for the reader to choose (but not too many... as that could get too confusing for a newbie).
    Signature
    Terso IT: for Web Development and SEO Latest blog post, on the mindset of outsourcing: How to Outsource: 2 kinds, which are you?
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3960225].message }}

Trending Topics