Newb question

[LDR-]

Hi. I'm very new to web design, but I am really eager to learn. I would like to know some names of some comprehensive text books that will help me learn how to put together a website. Any clues towards some good authors in the area or some names of some good textbooks is greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

[RandomLetters]

Art of Computer Programming by Donald Knuth

[LDR-]

Expensive volumes. They've received very good reviews though. Thank you.

[DemonWasp]

I'm not sure what RandomLetters is banging on about; his suggestion is a book about algorithms with examples in a hypothetical assembly language (not useful for web development by any stretch of the imagination).

Book-wise, you'd be best to find an O'Reilly book (http://oreilly.com/) on the languages / technologies you want to learn and start there. You can pick up the required knowledge piecemeal by searching the Internet, but for a comprehensive education you need to read a LOT, whether in a book or on the Internet. Probably better to start with a book.

[ProgrammingFun]

My experience has been that the best resource for learning web design is looking and playing with code found on good looking websites (this can be done using "Inspect Element" after right-click in Chrome) and Google in general (I have designed and coded a few professional websites).

You should probably Google lessons on basic HTML (w3schools, although being boycotted, is pretty good), CSS (Google search and w3schools), PHP (Google), and optionally, JavaScript.

The best platform to start developing through would be WordPress because although they seem like a blog, they are also one of the most popular Content Management System (CMS) solution.

[Brightguy]

LDR- @ Sun Jan 08, 2012 8:09 pm wrote:

Expensive volumes. They've received very good reviews though. Thank you.

You got trolled. (They are great books though.)

[LDR-]

What do you mean trolled?

I've already purchased them...

[Tony]

Great book for Computer Science -- theory, algorithms, programming, backend... not much on "design" though.

It depends on what exactly you want to be doing though.

[LDR-]

I want to know how to create web sites. I have some experience with photo manipulations in photoshop, though i'm not very good yet. Ultimately I'd just like to understand how to make an entire website from scratch. I want to have my own site .

[Brightguy]

LDR- @ Sun Jan 08, 2012 9:32 pm wrote:

I've already purchased them...

They won't tell you how to create a website.

LDR- @ Tue Jan 10, 2012 12:33 am wrote:

Ultimately I'd just like to understand how to make an entire website from scratch.

To start with, you want to learn HTML. There are many, many books and websites on this.

[Velocity]

html is quite simple, i learned all the basics to make a simple website on my own and used w3schools to pick up the general skills, all round it took me about 30 mins to understand the main concept aside from my amazing memory... Now after 2 months with html, xhtml, and javascript i make my own website, and personally i find hava scropt very neat towards what it allows you to do with or to your or other peoples websites.

[Tony]

That's a good goal to have. It's also a long way to go, depending on the complexity of the website. This complexity comes in layers, depending on what you want a website to do.

- data-store -- could be a database, could be some flat files. Or something in between.
- application layer -- taking the data, and processing it in some way.
- rendering stuff to HTML, the markup language of the webpages
- client-side -- e.g. JavaScript; if things need to happen on the page, after it was delivered
- CSS, graphics, design -- making things look pretty

if the website is static enough, everything could be rolled into a single HTML page. Good place to start experimenting, but bad idea in practice.

Depending on what kind of a website you want to build, you'd need some or all of those layers.

[Velocity]

tony that is one organized post, oh and if you would still like to learn i can pm you a list of amazing video tutorials that have helped me.

[LDR-]

Quote:

They won't tell you how to create a website.

Good thing I didn't get them.


I purchased the dreamweaver CS5 classroom in a book to help me along the way, but if you could PM me those tutorials that would be great too.

[Velocity]

ever heard of skidrow?