Interlopers.net - Half-Life 2 News & Tutorials

by **dr_doak** on Fri Jan 09, 2009 11:36 pm

Say someone didn't even know what <html> meant(I actually do, but not too much beyond that), and they started learning all about web design tomorrow. How long, BALLPARK(I know this will vary a lot, but lets assume this person is a nerd and has a good understanding of computers, and a little adobe experience), until this person could get some paying work? A year? 2 years? 4??

I know this is kind of an idiotic question, but if I'm looking at a 1 year investment its something I'd seriously want to consider, but if it would take say 4 years it really wouldn't fit into my plans right now(ie I'm too lazy).

by **dissonance** on Fri Jan 09, 2009 11:45 pm

Depends on how fast you learn. Are you taking a class?
Personally, I think reverse engineering is the best way to learn. View --> Source. Get an editor such as Gedit or Notepad++ that supports syntax highlighting.
I also think WYSIWYG editors are crap. They have a knack for adding way too much extra code to your page. It's a lot better to learn how each individual tag works through experimentation so that if something goes wrong, you can instantly nail down where it's coming from and fix it.
Oh, and comment your code when you're starting out. That way, you can refer back to it.

by **no00dylan** on Fri Jan 09, 2009 11:52 pm

I hate this question!!!
GRRRRRRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrR.........

by **dr_doak** on Fri Jan 09, 2009 11:58 pm

dissonance wrote:Depends on how fast you learn. Are you taking a class?
Personally, I think reverse engineering is the best way to learn. View --> Source. Get an editor such as Gedit or Notepad++ that supports syntax highlighting.
I also think WYSIWYG editors are crap. They have a knack for adding way too much extra code to your page. It's a lot better to learn how each individual tag works through experimentation so that if something goes wrong, you can instantly nail down where it's coming from and fix it.
Oh, and comment your code when you're starting out. That way, you can refer back to it.

I consider myself a fast 'self-taught learner'. I often have trouble paying attention in classes, but when I get my hands on something I can figure it out on my own easily, so picking apart and analyzing the source code sounds perfect for me

thanks. I'll start checking out the source code of the sites I visit, prepare to be dissected interlopers

As for the classes, I was actually going to talk to the local CC about what they offer, but like I said I prefer to learn on my own. It can't hurt though.

I was planning on actually learning the code, not using templates, although if its possible to find people to buy pre-made templates I'll gladly offer my services to supplement my income muahahah. I can't believe people really pay for that those though?

by **JakeParlay** on Sat Jan 10, 2009 6:17 am

dr_doak wrote: I'll start checking out the source code of the sites I visit, prepare to be dissected interlopers

I don't want to discourage you, but the coding behind this site is pretty sophisticated. When you're looking at the 'source' for these forums yes, you're looking at html... but all that html is the result of PHP sscripting actions on the back end. You're better off picking apart sites that are much simpler for now... choose ones that are just static web pages, not database driven like this one.

I think you can make huge strides in a year (or less). It's true, practice makes perfect, but buy some books along the way, too. Even informal education can benefit greatly from formal instruction. Don't shy away entirely from WYSIWYG editors too much either. Yes, you should learn the fundamentals elsewhere, but editors can really expedite the process and solve a lot of headaches. That, and they're generally a nice environment in which to work...

Good luck

by **windlab** on Sat Jan 10, 2009 1:03 pm

Teaching yourself is faster than being taught.
As dissonance said, get a good text editor first - I use Notepad++.
You could learn HTML and CSS in six months; not all of it naturally, but enough. There's always more to learn.

When you have a good knowledge of HTML and CSS, move on to PHP using WampServer to test your websites locally.

by **Blink** on Sat Jan 10, 2009 1:07 pm

It depends how much you learn and what you learn. As a freelance front-end developer, I can give you a few places to get started but you really have to wanna learn it.

Kick off with nailing HTML & CSS. These two skills are absolutely essential now and there are plenty of ways to learn it.

To kick start I'd recommend the HTML Dog website and then move onto a book I learnt from way back which was CSS: The Missing Manual.

This will give you a good grounding, but pursue as many articles and blogs as you can because doing HTML the proper semantic way is tricky to understand initially.

Second you will want some JavaScript experience. Now I found this hard to pick up because it is essentially a programming language, but a great alternative (that I use all the time) is jQuery. This is a library built on JavaScript that makes things sooo much easier.

Some design skills won't go a miss either, just enough that you know your way round Photoshop and can slice up a design etc.

As if that wasn't enough then I'd also recommend you at least gain an understanding of a back-end language such as PHP. Just so you can see how it works in a server environment and how that would interact with any front-end code you end up writing.

Link time:

Good luck

by **FlynT** on Sat Jan 10, 2009 2:41 pm

Here you got 2 really nice Sites for inspiring yourself, just for getting the visual punch what could be a good layout or color setup.

- www.lightondark.com
- www.webcreme.com

And here you have a brilliant CSS & Photoshop Tutorial Site.

- www.webdesignerwall.com

I will post some more as soon i'm home.

by **dissonance** on Sat Jan 10, 2009 6:16 pm

Can we move Blink's post (and other links) into a sticky in the web design subforum?
I bookmarked this post, and will be handing it out to anyone who is looking to start html. This is shaping up to be a nice resource.

by **FlynT** on Sun Jan 11, 2009 1:02 am

Yeah good idea, a resource for Web Development could be really nice.

by **Lobstar** on Wed Jan 21, 2009 2:15 am

A tip on how to get paid work really fast. Learn Flash alongside HTML and CSS. Thoose sneaky flash animators/coders earn billions...

by **theblahman** on Wed Jan 21, 2009 2:17 am

Flash for Web Design is dying out. 2 years ago pretty much every site was flash, now it's pretty rare.

Personally I think learning XHTML and CSS is fine. Maybe pick up PHP soon just because it's fun and pretty handy for everyday web applications.

by **Armageddon** on Wed Jan 21, 2009 4:06 am

How do you spell HTML

Highlight to read:
aich tee mhh ell

by **BlekksPoncho** on Sat Feb 14, 2009 5:57 pm

Lobstar wrote:A tip on how to get paid work really fast. Learn Flash alongside HTML and CSS. Thoose sneaky flash animators/coders earn billions...

The animation isn't that bad, very easy to learn, but what's animation without the programming? It's just a short movie.

The programming side of it is a completely different ball game, ActionScript is a programming language, and AS3.0 is OOP and therefore very hard for a non-programmer to try and start right away, to start learning AS3.0 he would first have to start with programming basics, then OOP basics, then read the AS3.0 documentation to find out how it draws and updates things on the canvas etc. and then experiment for about 2-3 months until he can do it.

It is a lot more work than I think this guy wants to take on, and it is not easy. These people get paid a lot for a reason.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand, I started learning HTML about 5 years ago then went onto CSS when it got big and necessary about a year later, one of the great resources that I used was W3 Schools, I would recommend using it as W3C are the World Wide Web Consortium that is founded by the people that created the web and set the standards etc.

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