New to Web Development - Please reply

[swetha_machiraju]

Hello All,

I am a computer science graduate and am interested to go for web development . But I don't know where to start . I have the basic idea of HTML and CSS. Also, I would like to learn from the basics like how a web page works, different elements of web development. I don't want to just focus on coding I want to have a big picture of how everything works. Can you please suggest books/online sources where I can find the related information.

Thanks.

[logic_earth]

You are a computer science graduate and yet you cannot find this information on your own? The school should have taught the ability to research, and piece information together. If you are expecting the world to provide answers on a silver platter for every one of your questions, you are not going to get very far. The information you want is freely available on the internet if you look, we have search engines for this very purpose.

[ralph.m]

Hi swetha_machiraju. Welcome to the forums.

Any good book on HTML and CSS will give you a pretty good overview of web design basics. SitePoint itself has a lot of good books. As logic_earth says, there is a lot of good information online. Even Wikipedia has great introductions to such things, so perhaps start there. That will give you an overview, from which you can branch out.

[phillipturner]

Hi Shweta,
Although Ralph gave very good points, but I would like to add some spoons of flavor
When you talk about web development it can be divided in 3 major parts:
1. Design: This part deals with over all look and appearance, alignment etc.
2. Development: Using programming language for using functionality, application and other desired/needed
3. html: This part also plays and important role, any thing which goes in the form of html, this is only medium by which web and user interact or communicate.

[ULTiMATE]

If you want to learn how to build websites I always recommend the Opera web standards curriculum.

http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/1...dards-cur/#toc

The link states that the page is now obsolete, but the information is still very much up to date. The content is to be moved completely to the new Web Standards website, but it's still in alpha and has empty right now (useful...).

[suejoh]

I understand that you want to know about how it all works but you don't say what it is you need to know and, more importantly, why you feel you need to know it.
As the others said I would just start to do it. Copy sites that exist or do sites for friends / charities / whoever and as problems pop up you will have to solve them and you will learn how it works. You cannot know everything and actually it is not a good use of your time. This way you learn what you need to and let the rest be looked after by someone else.

I assume you are asking how the internet works so what DID they teach you on your computer science degree if not that??
Anyway - the Open University did do fantastic courses on web development which made you investigate all around the subject while books tend to just teach the how to do.

Go forth and build sites!
Good Luck
Sue

[NiceFellow]

There are lots of styles of website and to learn the basic takes time. I suggest you google+reading+ patience

[GarryHillton]

Hi,

http://www.w3schools.com is a best resource to study website development independently. I have found this website very helpful for me and mine friends. Use it and get all the good stuff to start your website development career. Some of the other online resources are also available, but w3 school is the best option for any web developer.

Regards,

[TechnoBear]

I would have to disagree with you about w3schools. www.w3fools.com explains why.

There are plenty of good resourses available, some of which are listed on the w3fools site. You could try:
http://www.htmldog.com/guides/
http://www.opera.com/company/education/curriculum/
The SitePoint Reference is also very helpful.

[GarryHillton]

I think w3 school is a well organized tutorial with a lot of working examples and source code.

And i said that w3school is useful. You can use other online resources, if you find them useful. But i personally recommend w3school, i found it very useful in my early days.

Regards,

[TechnoBear]

The problem with w3schools is that some of the information is inaccurate or misleading, as the site I linked to explains. If you're trying to learn something, you want to learn correctly from a reliable source in the first place, rather than have to go back and relearn things later.

[Mittineague]

I agree with Garry that I also found w3schools very helpful in my early "learning HTML" days (roughly 14 years ago).

But I also agree with the Bear since I've had to un-learn and re-learn much since then.

I guess as long as you use the site understanding what you're working with it could still be a good place to get a "feel" for things i.e. the basics. But I wouldn't now advise anyone to get too invested in it as a learning source.

[oddz]

If you have a computer science degree there are plenty of entry level openings for web development. I would recommend actively applying to some of those and seeing what you can come up with. The best way to learn this stuff is really to get thrown in the deep end. With a computer science degree it probably won't be all that difficult to pick up considering the first language is always the toughest and you should already have a basic understanding of programming from a fundamentals stand point.

The only question to really ask yourself is what technology you would like to work in. The top ones are PHP, .NET, Ruby, Python and Java listed in no particular order. In most cases a company will only deal in one or two of those. Something like .NET might be easier to pick up if you already familiar with C++ or C#. I wouldn't expect a good college engineering program to go over much web specific stuff. Web development is really a speciality of software engineering like embedded systems or something.

Most people looking at your resume for an entry level position are just be concerned that you understand programming from a fundamental aspect with the degree. You probably would have the easiest time finding something at a company specializing in .NET though with just the degree. Finding a PHP position would likely be a little more difficult unless you learned the language yourself but still not impossible.

You will naturally pick up the client side stuff as you work on projects. It is pretty easy to pick up HTML and CSS. The tough part is mastering it. However, as an engineer you will probably only need to know the basics for the time being as a front-end developer will be most responsible for HTML and CSS stuff.

Without any type of internship in web development or prior experience I wouldn't expect an amazing salary of anything but average for an entry level engineer is probably around $40K – $50K. That is in the US… not sure about other places.