How to learn web site designing

[jeena71]

Hi I am an HR proffessional for more than 10 years and would like to acquire skills in website design. So far I have no background in programming / coding etc. I want to acquire skills in developing and supporting a website which is interactive in nature, something like a forum, where public can interact , give some rating feature, option to select members from a list so as to address specific querries to them etc.

To do this what should I learn. I learned html, but not enough to develop an application based site.

Some one suggested SQL, JAVA, Php, dotnet etc. I am quite confused as I have no background in technology and all these sounds like an impossible dream.

I need your help in advising me whether I can learn and if so how long will it take, say if I devote one hour every day. Also what programming language that I should learn so that I can develop an interactive website. Hope someone can help me

[Christian_SEO]

I would plan on learning PHP and also some SQL. Since you sound like more of a hands-on person, I think you will do well investing about an hour a day.

You may not have to build something from scratch also. I suspect you can find software that does all or most of what you want already, and can make modifications as you learn.

There are a LOT of good learning resources both online and off (books and classes), so it's really just a matter of your ability as a student. Depending on how much skill you want to have, it's hard to tell how much time will be needed, but I think after a month you will have quite a bit of knowledge that will allow you do many things, or quickly figure out how to do things you are clueless about today. :-)

I do have to mention that learning web design and learning programming are generall not the same thing and most people are better at one than the other, so keep that in mind.

[damonc79]

Hi,
I would suggest a book from Sitepoint. These guys write some excellent books on starting from zero to little knowledge, and get you up and running. They are very well written and usually provide a great practice project that you will do from start to finish through the course of the book(s). Throughout the practice project, they usually incorporate all the major parts of the programming language.

For actual "web design", you might do well to get Sitepoint's "HTML Utopia" book, which walks you through design and development with HTML and CSS.

www.sitepoint.com/books/css2/

For what you described, you want to do some "web development" as well. I've been an application developer, web application developer, and web designer for over 10 years. I'm just getting into a new(ish) development platform, Ruby on Rails. I just got the Ruby on Rails book from Sitepoint, and it's excellent so far. I would suggest starting with that one. Ruby on Rails is very cool, because it seems really easy to learn, it does a lot of the "hard work" involved in writing a web application for you, and it natively incorporates all the cool AJAX features you see in "Web 2.0" sites easily.

www.sitepoint.com/books/rails1/

There are other books from Sitepoint that focus on teaching you to develop web apps with other languages, such as .NET and PHP. Check them out here:

www.sitepoint.com/books/

[megahertz28]

I'm self taught in design. I learned wysiwyg editors like dreamweaver & frontpage. As far as "applications", I usually find free php & java scripts and modify them to my needs. For example the forum that you mentioned...I'd use http://www.phpbb.com/about/ an example of one slightly customized - http://www.ursulineacademy.us/phpBB2/
It's probably also a good idea to start with web templates if you aren't that comfortable modifying code yet. The good thing about the wysiwyg editors is that there is a code view that, in time, scripting will just sink in. Anyway, good luck & hope it helps. Here is the most recent site I've built (my sig. links are waaaaay old) www.sci.edu

Oh yeah I forgot to mention..
It seems that the interactive portion of it is really important to you. Many web hosts have dynamic / interactive elements preinstalled. Just by clicking enable in the site admin area, and answering some questions, you can have forums, polls, chat rooms, etc. Plug these links or code into your template, and you be closer to what you want. Just thinking it's an easier way to start than installing your own apps. and db's.
gl

[jesse1]

php and sql is not a bad choice.

you might want to hire people for some parts if you can't learn everything.

if you have experts to help you, while having some understanding of the technical lingo, you can go far

[kdemonte]

I started in this biz two years ago, not knowing html even existed! I think there are tons of great programs/scripts out that that truly require little html or php knowledge that you could begin with. phpbb is a simple forum to start with. I think the best way to learn anything is just do it. If you like learning things then this is the business. I learn so many new things everyday still. I love it! You can do it too.