technical > computers, technology and the internet

Web design wisdom & best practices

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MischaHY:
I've started learning HTMl/CSS/JS etc with an eye to getting work in that area in the future. I'm trying to give myself a good kickstart into it and was curious to know what wisdom could be offered up about working/continuous learning in this area. I'm sure there's a good few UKB'ers out there who have gone down this path at some point! So far I've been using freecodecamp which is really intuitive. I learnt German exclusively from Duolingo and conversations a few years ago so this sort of self-driven learning method seems to work well for me.

Things I've learnt so far: 

1) Being good at googling the right question is more important than being able to remember everything.  :google:

2) Lots has changed since I did this in college in 2012.

3) Visual systems are like toprope aid climbing and should be avoided.

4) An almost ridiculous amount of education is available for free!? Curious to hear about good free/cheap resources.

Really keen to hear any advice that may be considered relevant for the budding web dev  :great:

matt463:
sign up for stackoverflow.com. 99% of the time any problem I ever have has already been asked and answered by someone else. In the other 1%, as long as you provide a minimal reproducible example, people respond very fast.

MischaHY:

--- Quote from: matt463 on July 05, 2022, 08:22:49 am ---sign up for stackoverflow.com. 99% of the time any problem I ever have has already been asked and answered by someone else. In the other 1%, as long as you provide a minimal reproducible example, people respond very fast.

--- End quote ---

Yes, good beta as I've been meaning to do this anyway. Bottomless wisdom on that place.

matt463:
You probably do this already but I'd also recommend a good IDE. I use microsoft's VS Code. Works really well and has lots of add ons. I don't do any web development really but I'm sure VS code has some good add-ons for debugging web sites. Github is also a good integration to have with this. Ideal for version controlling your code and not ending up with a million different files in random places on your desktop.

remus:

--- Quote from: MischaHY on July 05, 2022, 08:18:07 am ---Things I've learnt so far: 

1) Being good at googling the right question is more important than being able to remember everything.  :google:

--- End quote ---

Nail this and you're 90% of the way there  :lol:


--- Quote ---2) Lots has changed since I did this in college in 2012.

--- End quote ---

Web development, especially front end (javascript), has a ridiculous pace of change at the moment. There's seemingly new tools and frameworks being released daily! Everyone agrees it's completely mental though so don't feel like you need to learn all the shiny new stuff. Once you've picked up the html/css/js basics I'd pick a popular framework (react would be a solid choice) and learn that in depth, then pick and choose other tools/libraries as you need them.

The other thing to bear in mind is that there's a lifetime of stuff you can pursue when it comes to programming, web design etc. so try not to get overwhelmed by terminology etc. As before, just pick and choose the bits which you find interesting and (relatively) approachable and build your skills out slowly.



--- Quote ---3) Visual systems are like toprope aid climbing and should be avoided.

--- End quote ---

Word. Visual tools will typically get you something that looks ok, but as soon as you want to start adding any vaguely complex functionality you'll hit a brick wall.


--- Quote ---4) An almost ridiculous amount of education is available for free!? Curious to hear about good free/cheap resources.

--- End quote ---

Yes, there's loads available online. If you find a platform that works for you then milk it.

My number one piece of advice would be to try and build a real project once you're familiar with the basics. I guarantee it'll be hard work the first time but you'll pick up so much practical experience, and that's what separates out the good from the bad. It'll also give you some appreciation for the 'full stack' so you understand a little about the stuff that actually delivers web pages to people.

With the project, ideally pick something that's interesting and/or useful to you so you're motivated to work on it. Also try and think of something where there's room to build out more functionality once you've got something basic up and running so you've got room to experiment. I wouldn't worry about building something totally new to the world, just copy something that already exists: you're looking for something to sharpen your skills, not some killer business idea that no one's thought of before.

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