How did you get into Web Development?

[knystrom18]

Were classes offered at a 4 year that you went to, or did you have to go to a technical school like ECPI or ITT to get all the education you needed? Self taught?Lemme know!Thanks,- K

[wirehopper]

Started with a BSCS+ - self-taught web skills. Got into the business by creating a site that demonstrated my web skills, and being fearless.Learned a lot from forums like this.Still learning ...

[End User]

> How did you get into Web Development?My parole officer suggested it as part of my work release program. And by "suggested", I mean "in lieu of sentencing".

[thescientist]

I was a really boring kid in High School and I hadn't really gotten into computer programming yet, so web designing seemed like a good way to fill the void/bridge the gap. It just seemed like something fun to do, helped pass the time, and was fairly new and interesting.

[jeffman]

I'm self-taught, because I started when the web was new (1993-4). You could take computer science courses, but there were no classes specifically about web design. With basic programming skills you could write CGI scripts in Perl. I didn't have much use for that back then. The most popular CGI in the early days was a page counter, and there were a lot of sites that would host that service for free. JavaScript didn't exist right away.

[Ingolme]

I got into web development on summer 2005. I started making pages with Microsoft Publisher, inserting bits of HTML within other parts of the page. It was a disaster. In the following months I eventually learnt HTML and started making my sites in notepad.I eventually learnt about XHTML and semantic mark-up.When it comes to Javascript and PHP, I certainly couldn't be as proficient in them as I am if I hadn't been in university. Understanding computers as a whole takes you very far in programming.

[Shamiro]

I just needed basic knowledge of HTML/PHP/MySQL in case of my C# MMORPG servers developement. I need to know a lot of things no matter if it's not even a programming languages. I started to learn html from the Advanced part just 2weaks ago, and I'm quite disappointed with my ability to fluently learn it without any problems I remember most of the syntax by heart, but it's not enough. Actually when I said about HTML learning i mean XML and CSS connected with it.I'm bad with design so it's hard for me to develop an attractive website with cool design, that's why I'm here in this forum To learn from some of you guys, who's really good at these things, particular with HTML and CSS.This was my first post and I just wanted to introduce my knowledge, so sorry If I pull this topic "out of the road" Cheers And thx for understanding

[ApocalypeX]

Self taught. I wanted to start programming and Javascript was where I started.

[jeffman]

Self taught. I wanted to start programming and Javascript was where I started.

That is the spirit. You want to do it, so you go out and do it. None of this namby-pamby "I'll take a class and learn 2 days worth of stuff in a 15 week semester" crap. The best tool for learning web development is twelve inches away from your nose. (A complementary tool sits just behind your nose.) Use them!

[ApocalypeX]

That is the spirit. You want to do it, so you go out and do it. None of this namby-pamby "I'll take a class and learn 2 days worth of stuff in a 15 week semester" crap. The best tool for learning web development is twelve inches away from your nose. (A complementary tool sits just behind your nose.) Use them!

Yeah I often get annoyed at people who want classes or are just too lazy to READ/LEARN for themselves. Its almost been a year now and I've learnt Javascript, PHP, Python, SQL then C++. Now I am a intermediate programmer I can focus on the finer points in programming, when I start uni next year for Computer Science I don't have to waste a year learning how to make a web page lol.My advice is literally get notepad, open up your web browser and just "write & refresh" till you understand an area then move to the next area. For example learning statement/commands then learning variables then functions. Keep moving and creating your own ideas. If you have just learnt how variables and if statements why not mix them together and see the result?Its 5:20am and I'm just rambling...

[boen_robot]

I learned about HTML from this site a few years ago... I think a year before this forum (or was it the same year? I'm not sure anymore). Several things accumulated to me going out to learn HTML, but they all steam from the fact that I work with my father at a computer shop. Those things include:1. The desire to build a web site for our firm.2. The desire to build desktop application(s) that will assist us and our customers with various things we need to go over and over again.3. An article in a magazine I once read regularly that gave a crash course on CSS syntax - I knew things were simple, but not THAT simple.4. The lack of desire in my high school IT teachers to teach us HTML and/or programming in a greather detail. The only thing they ever did was to teach us Pascal by reading previously prepared notes and writing out previously prepared examples. Have a question? They'll just reread whatever they already said from their notes.5. The Windows Media Player 10 beta... Microsoft was very opened to feedback for it, but without screenshots and a more detailed description of the ideas you had for improvement, you'd hardly ever get a "maybe" from the team. I used Yahoo!'s... I think it was called "Page Maker" to make a page on which I posted screenshots and details, but there were always things I wanted to change that were not available within that simple editor. Page Maker had an option to view the source, but with me not understanding it, I prefered to leave it as is, as I knew from experience not to touch up things without understanding them.6. I started regularly seeing 15-18 year olds knowing (X)HTML, CSS and PHP, and I started to wonder how simple must it be if there are lots of people doing it. I actually wrote to one or two people in other forums, kind'a praising them, like "Wow, 3 languages!!! Isn't that much?!? Did you had to go to a special class or something? How does your mind cope with THREE languages?", and they were like "Nah... it's a simple stuff man. If you have the desire, you can even learn it yourself.".Maybe a few more things I can't really recall right now...But looking back, I think that it wasn't going to be easy for me to learn those (and more) things properly without already having a good (not basic) understanding of computers and networks first. I already knew stuff that we currently tell people regularly on this forum, like, I know the difference between loading a page from a server and from your computer (I didn't yet realized the difference between localhost and the file system, but that came easy when I learned it), I already knew the difference between binary and text files (well, not terminologically, but intuitively - for me, a binary file was one readable and editable by a program, and a text file is ALSO readable and editable by a human. Nowadays, I know that technically both of those can be false, even if that's not the common case), I already had a basic understanding of input and output (I thought about programs as merchants - you give them something, they give you something in return) and last but not least, I was already aware of the command line, though I always reffered to it as "DOS" before that.

[amj]

I started in the early 90's by reading a book. Having done programming at Uni and they had an old version of the word processor Wordstar that they had us provide them with a number of documents with formatting tags in. Upon seeing HTML that reminded me of the few WS docs.Still use a glorified notepad and browser to check code works. Moved on from pure HTML to including JS for various features. Had a play with Frontpage and realised that hand codeing ASP pages could result in files that were much smaller and more controllable. I tend to have IIS installed on my PC to act as a test bed and link pages into Access or SQL.All self taught on a trial and error basis. ASP and some CSS from various web sites.

[jeffman]

Yeah! When I first saw HTML, I was reminded of the old WordStar markup. I do not think it was a subset of SGML, though. WordPerfect became the killer word processor because it didn't have visible markup.This was a loooong time ago, PC-wise.

[1089]

Self taught. My dad has a website, that had previously been done by a company that screwed up badly etc. Basically the site was dead and he wanted to start it up again. I told him I could do it and spent a week fiddling around with templates etc until I "designed" my first website. I'm currently in the process of giving it a good do-over. My dad then mentioned I know a little about website to a colleage at the university and I ended up recoding (basically kept the layout/design but did everything, CSS & PHP from scratch) the entire site. Just finished the project.Learning the hard way makes you remember everything better. This forum helped me quite a bit while I was struggling to get the grips on CSS.

[trinistorm]

I am actually looking for a job as a web developer in my country but they always want a BSC so I started one. I learned web page design by downloading books and I use this site and the w3c as references when I want to tamper with stuff.Its very useful that you indeed do a BSC because it teaches you about the concepts behind computing and you gain an appreciation for semantics but I haven't reached the web design year of my degree and I've already learned enough to cope purely because i want to launch a number of web based projects.Summary: I think someone can become a much better web developer if their drive comes from wanting to learn more about web technologies as opposed to wanting a web developer tittle.

[knystrom18]

Wow, I didn't expect this many replies! I did kinda forget about this thread to... Anyways, thanks guys. I'm newly inspired.

[MrFish]

Haha, this one is funny for me, I think. In Neopets you could open your own guild and create a guild page with use of html.And thus, the journey began!