What should I learn after HTML and CSS?

Question

I am 5 days into learning how to make my website, flying through my HTML & CSS book and having fun. I’m starting to consider what to order next. I’m not sure what to study next, so please give me some advice if you can. My end goal is to create a site that has a lot of the functionality that www.edufire.com and similar sites have, just for example. I think I’m learning well with the Head First Series, and the style will probably serve me well as an intro to programming. However, I don't think the books dive too deeply into any 1 subject.

I could order:

A: Head First Programming: A Learner’s Guide to Programming Using the Python Language

B: Head First Javascript

C: Head First PHP & MySQL

D: a different programming book

or

E: another CSS or design book to solidify my basic HTML & CSS skills

Any guidance would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Javascript. You'll use that almost as much as HTML and CSS.

Answer 2

if you wanna work on the front end id say B
if you are not afraid of coding on the server side then choose C

but learning php will definitely help you later on with javascript
so the best option is probably C

Answer 3

Are you going to do some websites?

If so, you must consider the following:

• What browsers are your site going to be compatible?
• What DTD are you going to use for your site and will it be compatible with your target audience's browser?

The reason I ask is because.

• New talk: HTML5 (it has lots of goodies coming out, already latest browsers, Firefox 3.6, Safari 4, Google Chrome, etc. support it)
• CSS 3 is (officially?) out! You can do cool designs such as border-radius (unfortunately none of the IE browsers support it)

PS Learn Javascript, AJAX and JQuery...You'll thank yourself later!

For Backend development, Yeah, PHP and MySQL will do you wonders (although some may debate learning MVC such as Springs and Hibernate).

Enjoy!

Answer 4

PHP & MySQL would by my choice. Once you understand programming concepts. you may jump to Javascript or JQuery itself.

Answer 5

As a professional PHP programmer I will advise you to not learn PHP first. It is extremely flexible and will let you do anything, which in my opinion may confuse beginners (there are many things you can do but shouldn't).

Of course, php has the advantage of working out of the box for websites. Some other languages like Java require quite a bit more work. I think that Python would be a good bet for a beginning programmer. It has a wide variety of libraries available to it, most of which are easy to use.

I would not recommend javascript. In my opinion, a good website needs a good server back end. Javascript is good for visual effects but if you rely on it to heavily you will alienate a decent portion of your audience. Consider using javascript to implement front end gui elements.

Good luck, I hope you can get this site up without too much trouble.

Answer 6

I'd say you should learn PHP or some other scripting language.

• PHP & MySQL will allow you to make dynamic web applications, like blogs, forums or whatever you fancy.
• After that, I'd read up on JavaScript.

You have some really, really fun learning ahead of you!

Answer 7

It really depends on what you are interested in doing. JavaScript, PHP, and MySQL are good choices. They server different roles in a web application.

You may also want to considered learning a CMS like Drupal or Joomla, or a bloggins system like Wordpress. All of those applications will show you real world examples of how the various technologies are put together.

Answer 8

My vote of those options: A.

I would disagree with most everyone who's commented so far, and say avoid PHP. Yeah, lots of people are using it, and, yeah, lots of the web has been written with it, but I think many (with good reason) are leaving it for more readable languages coupled with strong frameworks (ruby on rails, django etc.). Watch this about the creation of Django and Ruby on Rails. You'll notice a common reason why these guys created their respective frameworks.

If you keep going down the web road, JavaScript should be next on your list. The Elite Gentlemen gives a great suggestion in looking at jQuery. It is excellent. Don't really know much about the Head First JavaScript book....

If you want to learn a general purpose lower level programming language, Python is definitely a solid choice. I've never read Head First Python, but there's tons of Python tutorials all over the web you don't have to buy. Dive into Python is also free, but its targeted at programmers of other languages. Take a look at the first few chapters to see if you can use it. If not there's a reference to a beginners oriented text on that home page here.

And listen to fuzzy_lollipops, find a programming oriented text editor that has most of the features you like and master it!

Answer 9

I would grab Head First Javascript. Head first books are very good. Javascript can be run and tested in a web browser (use Firefox if you can) just like the HTML and CSS you have already been doing.

Granted Javascript isn't the ideal beginners language but what it lacks is easily made up for by the imediate results, abilitiy to see graphical results quickly, portability, and the relationship with what you already know.

Any web designer worth their salt will know Javascript so you could be able to get a decent job with HTML, CSS & JS.

Later you should move on to Python, then PHP & SQL. Or alternatively outsource your backend development and concentrate on the UI if that is what appeals to you.

{edit} oh yeah, if you use Firefox get http://getfirebug.com/ aswell... makes understanding JS muuuuch easier.

Have fun!

Answer 10

once you did CSS and html move ahead with Javascript and the current technology which is very poweful is Jquery.