Web Development training

In My Humble Opinion
1

I am a web designer by trade, but since the economy tanked there really hasn’t been much call for my type anymore. So I’m looking at getting additionsl training in the web development side of things. However, I haven’t the first clue about where to start.

I don’t have much of an idea of what web development is all about. Keep in mind that I’m less a techie than I am a creative. I took ONE class in Pascal in college and it bored and frustrated me to tears. But I can play with Photoshop and Dreamweaver for hours… and let’s face it, HTML ain’t hardly programming. At one point in time, creativity may have been appreciated, but no longer, so I figure that doing something at least moderately related to what I like would be better than drowning in the secretarial pool.

So, what will I need to know? What skills are most in demand? ASP, JSP, ColdFusion, other-acronyms-as-appropriate, what? I know I would personally like to learn more about multi-media, DHTML, and other cool, creative things, but I doubt that’s enough. And I really don’t know anything about the back-end to know what it is I should be training in.

So are there any web developers out there who can give me an idea where to go from here?

Thanks…

2

Learn about database design, and operation. Learn how web pages are served, and how they operate. This knowledge will carry you farther than any particular technology.

As far as technologies go, you’ve got to learn one active page technology (they’re all pretty similar), javascript, CSS, DHTML (which is really just the combination of everything I’ve mentioned so far). XML and XHTML wouldn’t hurt, either.

But if you’re more into creative stuff, you ought to look into the field of UI (user interface) design. Just a thought–take it as you will.

3

So explain that to me? I honestly haven’t seen a lot of ads looking for UI designers. I also haven’t a clue what’s involved in it.

4

As far as pure web stuff goes, CSS is pretty standard these days (and, incidentally, pretty well integrated in Dreamweaver) as is Photoshop.

Multimedia stuff, not so much. (I got my minor in it - I wish it were in demand.) Not even flash is as popular as it used to be.

I’d work on either PHP or ASP which, as previously mentioned, are damn near the same in most significant ways, AFAIK.

5

bump

Only two web developers in all of SDMB??

6

Sorry. For some reason, I didn’t get subscribed to this thread, even though I selected e-mail notification. Anyway, UI design is the design of user interfaces, with the goal of making software easy to use. The amount of programming involved varies greatly, from none at all to a whole lot. A google search will get you lots more information.

7

Is it safe to assume that, on average, the amount of programming tends to be on the “whole lot” end of the spectrum?

8

Probably not. It really depends on the position you’re looking at.

9

Kaio, if life is quiet, I suggest you have a look at something like www.Elance.com
It’s expensive to register, and it can be a little hard to actually get the contracts as people tend to go with the best known bidders, but it might be worth considering.

10

To me, web development is a very broad term, so I’ll try to categorize it a bit, then you can choose what technology to seek training in.

Light web development - plain html, light JavaScript or VBScript for listboxes etc. At this level the content outweighs the code.

Medium WD - JSP, ASP and CGI. Code and content are about the same.

Heavy WD - EJBs. Mostly code, little content.

Then of course there is the whole area of web site administration you could look into. Being able to install, configure, and most importantly secure a web site is a good skill to have.

11

What’s EJB?

12

EJB = Enterprise Java Bean. They run in special application servers such as BEA WebLogic or IBM WebSphere.

13

Gotcha, thanks.