How did you learn to code?

[Brett]

Tweet

Hi Tom,

I started off with a book called "Learn HTML in 24 hours" - excellent starter.

Then I started using that in conjuction with Frontpage - which was really poor as it adds too much stuff to the code.

Tried various WSISYG packages with varying degrees of success - am now using DW MX 2004 which is brilliant (as far as I can tell).

I've tried coding php, asp and asp.net and like Mark I can't really get into it. I have a Sams teach yourself ASP in 24 hours which I'd happily let you have if you think it is any good for you.

Brett

[Guswold]

A few of my thoughts:

1) Even bad looking pages can make money - if they've got the right content

2) Frontpage does produce awful code - BUT I know people who have used it to create a site in a day, which they are still making serious money from. So if Frontpage gets you up and running use it - then learn how to fine tune the underlying code

3) PHP may make life easier - I don't know I've never used or learnt how to use it. I still hard code in pure HTML, which is laborious, but it works - so don't try to run before you can walk and get distracted by the "fancy stuff". There's plenty of time for that - once you're making a living!

Good luck!

[Elaine]

Ever thought of signing up for a night school course in web designing?

I started using frontpage - tried several wyswyg editors and frontpage was the only one I could understand. Once I'd got the hang of that I, and found that it wasn't very good when it came to affiliates code, I changed to DW and found I could understand a lot more.

Started night school in September and can honestly say I've learnt something new everyweek and found it clarifys a lot of stuff as well.

The best bit is that I can get 'student' software - so for an outlay of £75 for the course I saved over £600 on Dreamweaver Studio and now can look forward to learning flash and fireworks.

Still don't have a clue about php and mysqul - but know a bloke who does - have trouble selling and promoting the websites, but married a salesman - useless at organizing, filing and all the other officey things, but after 18 years at the Halifax I'm still useless but made some good friends who can help and will problaby join me in my ventures.

So the moral is - do the things your good at, be a nice person and you'll get the help you need in the areas you struggle with.

Here endeth this mornings sermon.

[uklejon]

Here's my 2p.....

I must admit when i get stuck i call "Jooooonnnnnn", my partner is a web designer so i cheat a little.

I use Front Page and it does mess up the HTML a little not really to any major extent. I find FP really good for setting out tables nice and quickly.

I started by editing my FP code to make it a little easier to read and just picked it up as i went along.

I started learning ASP by customising free scripts and i can know but some simple database applications on my own.

I'm now trying to get my head around ASP.NET....but this is proving a little time consuming......

Software i use to make life easier is.....

FP
ASPMaker - For database stuff
Swish - for any small flashy bits
CSS Style Generator
Visual Basic 5.0 CCE
Web matrix for asp.net stuff

Books i find usefull.....

ASP Developers Guide
Sams Teach Yourself ASP
The Complete Reference HTML
Visual Basic in Easy Steps
SAMS Javascript


Thats about it.......

Carol

[scifind]

I started with a 5 minute overview of HTML from sone one I knew at university. He just expained how to construct links, insert images and that is it.
I wrote many pages using plain text editors and learnt bits and pieces from webpages (both how to and HTML source)

I did use frontpage express for a few quick and easy pages, later edited with notepad.

Gave up with notepad and used a text editor again for a couple of years.

18 months ago I found DreamWeaver, I like it (the version I use is a bit older than MX but is still fine) good for making templates and automatically updating loads of files at the same time.

As for javascript I try and change in notepad but I don't use javascript much at all.

As for PHP Learning was a combination of appling logic from Java (self taught from online tutorials) and C (corrispondance course - never finished)
I stuck at PHP - simpler than perl and learnt using online tutorials ( the one at lycos / tripod was the first - introduction to database interactions was cool if you havent got mysql/php sign up for a free tripod account to see if you get on with PHP).

Have now got a book, cannot rememeber the name, loads of code samples, but I now feel confident to write scripts from scratch with my friend php.net.
Last year I wrote an application that acts as a forum on one site - took me a few weeks of tinkering, but 2 years previous to that I hadn't a clue past html.

[tomj]

hmmm, a night course....brilliant idea. I'll look into that.

I'm making a list of all these tips and what people use and will look into them.

The thing is it would be too easy to call one of my ex colleagues and say wanna earn a buck and i could have a brand new box fresh spangly website with all the trimmings in no time at all.....

thing is, just seems like i expose myself too much for when things go wrong.

I won't ever be able to do this business properly unless I can hand on heart say...I did that all on my own!

[Freebie]

All these people putting Fronpage down

It's easy to use - if you can use Microsoft Word/publisher, you already have experience with Frontpage. It's a great html learning tool for this reason - it shares all it's menus with the rest of Office.

We have over a dozen sites, all created using Frontpage.

My advice is keep it simple until you know more, and concentrate more on writting content for your visitors than giving them a breathtaking design.

[jamie]

I started with dreamweaver, got stuck!! then booked myself into a 2 day dreamweaver course! It cost about £700 but has more than payed for itself already..

It didnt teach me the complicated stuff but enought to be able to build nice looking sites easily

Jamie

[wwwb]

good ref guide -not definitive but helpful
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/

[tshirtsuntan]

kbudden - Could you provide the links to the JS menu program and the CGI script?

They sound really handy. I've been struggling with form processing CGIs as the ones I've found require a bit more than one parameter change :/

And its safe to say that as CGI is concerned I dont' have a scooby.

[john924]

I found that the best way to learn how to produe html written pages, is by going to Google and searching for "FREE html tutorials"

I found that a good site to learn how to write webpages using html is HTMLGoodies.com.