Website Programming Nowadays

[KRS1]

I really really really need to get back up to date on the newest forms of website programming, Im still using tables and AP layers to make sites and need to update my skills.

What type of website programming would I need to learn in order to make something like a dating website these days?

Thanks for any info.

[bino]

PHP, SQL and CSS.

HTML 5 is state of the art, and starting to see lots of it.

[manarak]

PHP, SQL and CSS.

HTML 5 is state of the art, and starting to see lots of it.

yup... PHP5 to be precise

State of the art is AJAX, i.e. data exchange with the server without reloading the page.

To achieve AJAX, you need to master Javascript

Some JS frameworks like JQuery can help.

[kmj]

I would go on to add

OOP programming for PHP5

MVC ( Model–view–controller ) 3 & 4 patterns,

JSON, XML.

jQuery is pretty good library for javascript selectors and AJAX requests.

CSS3 ( apart from browser incompatibilities, but whats new )

HTML5, I've been using this for the past 6 months and it's pretty powerful, I love it.

IDE's

From an IDE I would look at, Eclipse & Netbeans, both have good debuggers I use XDebug.

And I use

Eclipse for Android, Joomla, Drupal and Wordpress devlopment

Netbeans for stand alone PHP projects

Also a good Javascript debugger, I prefer Firebug for FF.

But all IDE's and debuggers are a matter of preference, this is just my development setup.

Edited December 4, 2011 by kmj

[KRS1]

oh god this is intimidating....how much can i getaway with by learning Joomla as the first baby step?

What's Dreamweaver CS5 capable of nowadays?

Sorry guys but i've just been out of the loop for soooo long now....atleast i know Wordpress.

HTML 5, will have to look into that.

[wpcoe]

Crap. Here I am still typing basic HTML/CSS code in Notepad. You danged young whippersnappers!

[dave111223]

CSS3 makes things so much easier with the likes of border radius and box shadow, text shadow etc..

I already use a lot of these things. I don't think it's a bit deal if someone is still using IE7 and seeing square corners instead of rounded. Having to use images for all shadows/corners/etc... is becoming a thing of past.

Also javascript like this: http://typeface.neocracy.org/ now makes it possible to embed custom fonts (mainly for titles/headings etc..) In the past you'd always have to use images.

JQuery makes animation easy. Most things that you used to have to use Flash for can now be done easily in javascript with JQuery .

Edited December 4, 2011 by dave111223

[KRS1]

CSS3 makes things so much easier with the likes of border radius and box shadow, text shadow etc..

I already use a lot of these things. I don't think it's a bit deal if someone is still using IE7 and seeing square corners instead of rounded. Having to use images for all shadows/corners/etc... is becoming a thing of past.

Also javascript like this: http://typeface.neocracy.org/ now makes it possible to embed custom fonts (mainly for titles/headings etc..) In the past you'd always have to use images.

JQuery makes animation easy. Most things that you used to have to use Flash for can now be done easily in javascript with JQuery .

i always wondered how people made the rounded corners....man im out of date

Any input regarding Joomla or Drupal?

Edited December 4, 2011 by KRS1

[SweRob]

CSS3 makes things so much easier with the likes of border radius and box shadow, text shadow etc..

I already use a lot of these things. I don't think it's a bit deal if someone is still using IE7 and seeing square corners instead of rounded. Having to use images for all shadows/corners/etc... is becoming a thing of past.

Also javascript like this: http://typeface.neocracy.org/ now makes it possible to embed custom fonts (mainly for titles/headings etc..) In the past you'd always have to use images.

JQuery makes animation easy. Most things that you used to have to use Flash for can now be done easily in javascript with JQuery .

i always wondered how people made the rounded corners....man im out of date

Any input regarding Joomla or Drupal?

Joomla, Wordpress and Drupal is what we call a CMS system (Content Managment System), any serious new website is based in some kind of CMS system. As for setting up a Joomla site, slapping on a premade theme, and using premade modules to make the site come alive dont make you a "Website Programmer" in my world a Website programmer is the folks who create a CMS from scratch, or a CMS module from scratch, or a CMS Theme from scratch.

Setting up a Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress site is pretty basic stuff, any end user with some kind of technichal knowledge can manage to do this.

But as for you going forward, do start with Joomla or Drupal.

[KRS1]

Whats Dreamweaver capable of these days? I still use it to make basic web pages and fiddle around with CSS, but know that im not using it to its fullest potential. Is it in someway capable of being regarded as a CMS of sorts?

[Totster]

Well dreamweaver is a powerful editing application used to design and develop web pages/site.. whereas Joomla is a software platform that one can build upon to build a website.

The webdesign snobs will say Joomla is a laymans way of building website, yet it has been used by many large organisations as a good platform to develop a website.

Example - http://www.tot.co.th/index.php

totster

[dave111223]

Whats Dreamweaver capable of these days?

It's not really what Dreamweaver is capable of...more what you are capable of, Dreamweaver will allow you to do it.

If you are expecting Dreamweaver to magically do everything for you, you are in for a shock.

It's kind of like saying "Are these tools capable of building a house"

[KRS1]

Whats Dreamweaver capable of these days?

It's not really what Dreamweaver is capable of...more what you are capable of, Dreamweaver will allow you to do it.

If you are expecting Dreamweaver to magically do everything for you, you are in for a shock.

It's kind of like saying "Are these tools capable of building a house"

Hey....be nice.

Edited December 5, 2011 by KRS1

[KRS1]

Well dreamweaver is a powerful editing application used to design and develop web pages/site.. whereas Joomla is a software platform that one can build upon to build a website.

The webdesign snobs will say Joomla is a laymans way of building website, yet it has been used by many large organisations as a good platform to develop a website.

Example - http://www.tot.co.th/index.php

totster

Thanks im starting to get a better idea of what all these terms are now...I've had a few people scoff at Dreamweaver also, so i was wondering what the problem was.

Guess I should dig deeper into Dreamweaver, or should i just forego it altogether and look into things that allow you to perform deeper functions.?

[innerspace]

Thanks im starting to get a better idea of what all these terms are now...I've had a few people scoff at Dreamweaver also, so i was wondering what the problem was.

Guess I should dig deeper into Dreamweaver, or should i just forego it altogether and look into things that allow you to perform deeper functions.?

The main reason that serious developers look down on dreamweaver is when beginners use the WYSIWG (what you see is what you get) mode of it and call themselves web designers.

Dreamweaver does make it easy for absolute beginners to make terrible websites. It is also a great tool for experienced people to make amazing websites.

If you are serious about this and use dreamweaver make sure you mainly use the code view and just use the other features to save time.

Any decent coder should be able to work in notepad, however colour coding of different syntax is very convenient.

[dave111223]

The main reason that serious developers look down on dreamweaver is when beginners use the WYSIWG (what you see is what you get) mode of it and call themselves web designers.

Dreamweaver does make it easy for absolute beginners to make terrible websites. It is also a great tool for experienced people to make amazing websites.

If you are serious about this and use dreamweaver make sure you mainly use the code view and just use the other features to save time.

Any decent coder should be able to work in notepad, however colour coding of different syntax is very convenient.

Also sometimes people use some of the (IMHO) terrible dreamweaver features such as the template system. If your site is big enough to necessitate template...please don't use plain HTML + dreamweaver template. Use a CMS as mentioned above. Even SSI includes would be better than dreamweaver template.

[Phil Conners]

Whats Dreamweaver capable of these days?

It's not really what Dreamweaver is capable of...more what you are capable of, Dreamweaver will allow you to do it.

If you are expecting Dreamweaver to magically do everything for you, you are in for a shock.

It's kind of like saying "Are these tools capable of building a house"

Hey....be nice.

I don't think you should be offended by this. It is like asking if a hammer is able to build a house. DW is just a tool. It is possible to design beautiful websites with it, but you would have to know how. It is not a "wizard" in the sense of some software where you just stick out a few pointers and it builds the result for you. Even if you do know how to use DW it is not an automatic guarantee that you can make a nice website. You'd also have to know about things like design and usability.

A CMS is a much easier way forward. Joomla and Drupal as already mentioned are very popular. Another option is WordPress. It was actually designed as a blogging tool, but it can be customized to a point where it functionally is very similar to a CMS, it comes with thousands of very nice and free themes (skins) and is IMO in many ways much easier to work with than Joomla and Drupal - and in my experience less prone to be hacked.

[KRS1]

Whats Dreamweaver capable of these days?

It's not really what Dreamweaver is capable of...more what you are capable of, Dreamweaver will allow you to do it.

If you are expecting Dreamweaver to magically do everything for you, you are in for a shock.

It's kind of like saying "Are these tools capable of building a house"

Hey....be nice.

I don't think you should be offended by this. It is like asking if a hammer is able to build a house. DW is just a tool. It is possible to design beautiful websites with it, but you would have to know how. It is not a "wizard" in the sense of some software where you just stick out a few pointers and it builds the result for you. Even if you do know how to use DW it is not an automatic guarantee that you can make a nice website. You'd also have to know about design, usability, and many other things.

A CMS is a much easier way forward. Joomla and Drupal as already mentioned are very popular. Another option is WordPress. It was actually designed as a blogging tool, but it can be customized to a point where it functionally is very similar to a CMS, it comes with thousands of very nice and free themes (skins) and is IMO in many ways much easier to work with than Joomla and Drupal.

Before you know what you can accomplish, you have to know what your tools are capable of.

I've used Wordpress pretty extensively in the past, but for SEO purposes it's not so good.

Edited December 5, 2011 by KRS1

[dave111223]

I've used Wordpress pretty extensively in the past, but for SEO purposes it's not so good.

Wordpress is great for SEO if configured properly. It has good SEO URLs, good H1,H2 etc, very easy meta tag plugins... not sure why'd say it's no good for SEO?

[just_Elaine]

CSS3 makes things so much easier with the likes of border radius and box shadow, text shadow etc..

I already use a lot of these things. I don't think it's a bit deal if someone is still using IE7 and seeing square corners instead of rounded. Having to use images for all shadows/corners/etc... is becoming a thing of past.

Also javascript like this: http://typeface.neocracy.org/ now makes it possible to embed custom fonts (mainly for titles/headings etc..) In the past you'd always have to use images.

JQuery makes animation easy. Most things that you used to have to use Flash for can now be done easily in javascript with JQuery .

Just recently did a tutorial on CSS3, but haven't used it. I thought one of the capabilities was if you store your font files on the server, it could load the font from there if the user didn't have that font. I remember it because I thought that was a great feature. Anyway, thought that I would mention this as an alternative to embed custom fonts.

[wpcoe]

Just recently did a tutorial on CSS3, but haven't used it. I thought one of the capabilities was if you store your font files on the server, it could load the font from there if the user didn't have that font. I remember it because I thought that was a great feature. Anyway, thought that I would mention this as an alternative to embed custom fonts.

That is true, but for a user with a slow connection -- even using ADSL here in Thailand often -- the page will first display in the default font, then jerk into the "embedded" font, as there can be a delay while the font file is downloaded. Not a problem, per se, but can be irritating if you are reading some text and suddenly it reformats while doing so.

[Khun Jean]

I would not forget about the mobile platforms, they are already used more than browsers on desktops. Depends heavily on what users you target of course.

Use HTML5 and CSS wherever possible. I like microsoft development environment so i use Visual Studio. Express edition is for free.

JQuery. Used it then dumped it. Too bloated especially for mobile platforms. In practice i used about 5-10% of JQuery. I just extracted the parts i used often and made a micro version of JQuery.

Using a CMS or other frameworks does not teach you much. Use it when the functionality offered matches with what you need and tweak it. Want to build something unique, get down to HTML5 and CSS, even in a notepad.

Never wrong to understand the inner workings. In my view it is essential.

[Khun Jean]

PHP, SQL and CSS.

HTML 5 is state of the art, and starting to see lots of it.

yup... PHP5 to be precise

State of the art is AJAX, i.e. data exchange with the server without reloading the page.

To achieve AJAX, you need to master Javascript

Some JS frameworks like JQuery can help.

I used AJAX (when it still did not have that name) in 1999. Hardly state of the art.

Now it is called XHR, still exactly the same thing. 5-10 lines of javascript is what you need.

PHP, mySQL are fine i prefer ASP.NET and MVC on framework 4 and higher because i am a MS person.

All depends with what you already use and know. It is easier to expand knowledge then to start from zero.

[Crushdepth]

If you want mainstream skills (ie. easy to get work), a good knowledge of PHP plus a basic knowledge of HTML, MySQL, CSS and (increasingly important) Javascript. Forget Dreamweaver, if you build on top of a CMS (and why wouldn't you?) you are better off using Netbeans or Eclipse for PHP development.

A high-calibre handgun is also useful for executing SEO consultants and people who still think Cold Fusion is cool.