Re: What Next?

Thanks Peter and everyone who responded, even the hijackers.

I wasn't all that clear, I'm afraid. I don't want a job. My goal is to
create webpages: First, proprietary pages for myself, and second, webpages
for others.

My ears are open, but it's difficult to see much benefit for the time of
learning something like ASP -- my idea has to learn one robust server-side
code (PHP) and spend my time getting good at it. Ditto MySQL.

Graphics are an exception. I don't know Paintshop all that well, and I may
migrate to Photoshop and actually spend the time to learn it thoroughly.
Flash and a drawing program are possible. PHP's gd library is a must-have
for my plans, since I want to be able to draw graphs from php.

I spend about ten hours per week, at this point, on purely theoretical study
(mostly php) and about 60 hours per week actually building webpages. I
really enjoy the coding aspect. I'm a lot weaker at graphics, although I
enjoy that, too.

I'm working on my first page for someone else, a free job for a local
neighborhood association. They are happy so far,

Anyway, all the talk about XHTML is wasted as far as my personal issues,
although people obviously want to discuss it for their interest. I have
started coding my pages in XHTML 1.1 and it really presents no major
challenge. I haven't had any problems with it on browsers, although I don't
qualify browsers older than IE 5.

Anyway, a question about your reply. I really hadn't considered spending
the time to learn about webservers, i.e. Apache. I just ftp the files to my
host and forget about it. About my only work above the public_html
directory is to install a few db-connection scripts and a few tweaks to
php.ini. Do you really think it's that important for me?

Thanks again for taking the time to respond.
"Peter Fox" <peterfox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
message news:WsV1OXAz0YWFFwex@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Following on from Mason's message. . .
I've been working to become competent at making websites. My learning
path
has been:

html -> css- > paintshop pro -> javascript -> php/mysql

I'm getting somewhat proficient at php/mysql (although I have plenty to
learn - I haven't even started on gd library) and want to think about my
next step.
Good start. You've been looking at how to use a useful set of tools for
your workshop.

There are possibly a couple more bits of off the shelf technology that you
ought to get a feel for. Apache and setting up a web server. If you can
already do this (it's not hard on a familiar operating system) then try it
on an alternative OS. [1]

There is some important background reading to be done in the field of
security both the general scope and the specifics of dealing with user
input. You should also check out a little bit of the computer science bit
of programming (data structures and OO for example) and the software
engineering bit of programming (development methods and life cycle for
example). Almost anyone can write PHP code but very very few can produce
systems that are robust, resilient and reliable. It can take years to be
really good.

Then you will need to develop your working environment. This is a matter
of trying out editors[2], making useful tools, trying out utilities,
evolving reusable code and structuring your workspace efficiently.

Of course you'll need the communication skills to find out what users
really want and convert that into something that 'works' on the screen.
This takes time and experimentation.

Finally you might want to investigate in a spirit of 'I wonder if these
can do anything for me' some frameworks.

o Good luck.
o When you have a fully functioning software workshop then hyped things
like for example AJAX will be a lot easier to evaluate for 'what can they
do for me'.
o Get in plenty of 'miles'. There is no substitute for screen-hours spent
sweating towards working systems.
o If you contact me direct (watch spam trap) I will send you a tutorial
resource which I think will be right up your street.

[1] Also remember that there are multiple PHP programming paradigms. As
snippets inside HTML and as programs that emit HTML.

[2] Have a look at, and keep your eye on, Eclipse. (It doesn't work for
me but YMMV.)


--
PETER FOX Not the same since the porcelain business went down the pan
peterfox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
2 Tees Close, Witham, Essex.
Gravity beer in Essex <http://www.eminent.demon.co.uk>


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