To all you hand coders out there, where do I begin to learn?

Question

I build my first web site in Dreamweaver 8 in the split screen so I could see the code and visuals at the same time. I know a bit about html, a little bit.. where can I go on line the get tutorials and advise on learning html. My second question what other code do I need to learn to proudly call myself a coder...I ask this to you experienced coders out there..Java script, xhtml what else I am getting a real interest in hand coding websites and know there are truly excellant coders out there I need your advise where to start .. you guys where beginners once yourself... so please pass on your wisdom to a rookie

Answer 1

You can go to http://www.w3schools.com to learn html as well as a number of other languages.

To consider yourself a "coder", you would need to write code that adds some logic to a script or application. You could use something like javascript or java or perhaps you could go with a serverside scripting language such as PHP, Asp.net or Cold Fusion. XHTML is more of a web page specification and defines a set of criterion about how the page html must be created. You can learn more about these coding languages at the same URL above.

Answer 2

The only way one gets "good" (at anything) is to always be looking for a bigger challenge; that is, finding things (to design / program) that you haven't done before. Simply "learning" new techniques isn't enough; you have to put them to use. Putting techniques to use is easier when you have a specific project to work on; which may even mean "volunteering" to build a complex site for a "charity"; great experience, great references, great for the portfolio.

If you eventually want to be in the "big leagues", learn how to build multi-tier "enterprise solutions", with data base back-ends. You then decide to "specialize" (more or less) in the .Net architecture, or the Java Enterprise architecture.

Find a "problem" to solve, scan the web for tools that can solve that problem, and then go for it.

Both Microsoft and Sun have great sites where you can find most of the information you'll need to get started; then you start cataloging all the spin-off sites that have related info that can help you with your work. (Like Yahoo Answers, the Code Project, etc.)

"Programming" per se, isn't such a great skill; analyzing a problem, breaking it down into manageable parts, designing a solution, and THEN building it, is.

Answer 3

There's no benefit to hand coding anymore, tools like Dreamweaver are adept enough now to generate proper markup, focus on Learning CSS2 , and PHP (for the server side). Being a pure hand coder used to be a badge of honor, but the reality is the web moves too fast to hand code stuff, focus on learning the altest CSS., dhtml and php

Answer 4

CSS and PHP are the latest and greatest in codes. Basically you can learn it by thinking up different tasks, then googling the code for that task, and saving all the ones you use in a dicument file. Pretty soon you'll be able to do it logically instead of having to look it up. It's good brain exercise!

.

Answer 5

javascript is code and so is php - but note javascript runs on the webpage and php runs on the server. One is a client side scripting language the other is serverside