What's the sequence to learn web programming?

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P

pedestrian via DotNetMonster.com

With so many technologies around which include HTML, XML, Javascript, CSS,
ASP, ASP.NET (and PHP, JSP of course etc.)

What is the sequence for learning web programming? which come should be
learned first and which should come later? Which form the foundation?

My aim is to become a web developer for both commercial Intranet and Internet
application.
Thanks for sharing...
 
B

BusEdge

With so many technologies around which include HTML, XML, Javascript, CSS,
ASP, ASP.NET (and PHP, JSP of course etc.)

What is the sequence for learning web programming? which come should be
learned first and which should come later? Which form the foundation?

My aim is to become a web developer for both commercial Intranet and Internet
application.
Thanks for sharing...

First, not sure why PHP and JSP are in there with "of course"... oh
the horror!

Ask this question to 10 web developers and you will get 10 different
responses. Personally, I think you either have it or you don't. Anyone
can pick up a book, code a few html pages and call themselves a web
developer. But to become a good web developer, you need a solid
foundation in math and logic. Regarding platforms/languages, Classic
ASP is out, don't even bother with that. You should definitely start
with HTML, then understand the concepts of server side vs. client
side, then learn about the ASP.NET platform, then pick a dotnet
language like VB.NET or C# and start learning that (my preference is
C#). You will also need to learn about databases and how to write SQL
queries. You can download SQL Server Express for free (http://
msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/sql/). XML, Javascript, and CSS
are all things that you will pick up along the way, I wouldn't focus
on those specifically until you have a good understanding of ASP.NET
and using ADO.NET and SQL.

Regards,
Brandon

http://www.busedge.com
 
L

Laurent Bugnion [MVP]

Hi,
With so many technologies around which include HTML, XML, Javascript, CSS,
ASP, ASP.NET (and PHP, JSP of course etc.)

What is the sequence for learning web programming? which come should be
learned first and which should come later? Which form the foundation?

My aim is to become a web developer for both commercial Intranet and Internet
application.
Thanks for sharing...

IMHO, it's vital for a web developer to understand how the client is
working. Server-side development is not that different from "normal"
software development. It's the same libraries, the same languages. On
the client, the constraints are much bigger you have less permissions,
the languages are (more or less) given (HTML, JavaScript, CSS).

My recommendation would be to start with pure client-side pages, before
moving to client-server interaction.

Greetings,
Laurent
 
J

John Timney \(MVP\)

Start by learning html - because thats what all web technologies output in
one form or another. Learn CSS as you learn HTML - its necessary to know as
much about one as the other. Once your comfortable, introduce javascript.
When your happy with the basics start with simple asp.net examples and
compare the output to what you know now about html/css/javascript. PHP at
this point is easy to bolt on, once you've got that you can go through the
pain of getting a JSP runtime environment working and learn about servlets,
taglibs etc if you really think its important - me, I'd spend that time
instead looking at accessing databases if your so new to web development.

Equally as important is learning about webservers - as you cannot detach
your coding work from that requirement ever. Dont leave it until last.

--
--
Regards

John Timney (MVP)
http://www.johntimney.com
http://www.johntimney.com/blog
 
P

pedestrian via DotNetMonster.com

Laurent said:
Server-side development is not that different from "normal"
software development. It's the same libraries, the same languages.

Hi Laurent, thanks for your recommedation, I agree with you.
Refer to the above, Is the "Server-side development" you mentioned
refer purely to ASP.NET or ... ? I appreciate your reply.

--
Regards,
Pedestrian, Penang.

Message posted via DotNetMonster.com
http://www.dotnetmonster.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/asp-net/200703/1
 
P

pedestrian via DotNetMonster.com

Hi, John, thanks for your reply. I started with basic ASP.NET with limited
HTML knowledge and just going to learn CSS. When I look at the web pages
source codes, I feel that it's complicated. May be that because my HTML
knowledge is limited and yet to learn both CSS and Javascript.

I'll spend some time with that and then only to ASP.NET and other.

I've learn some ADO.NET like DataAdapter, DataReader, DataSet, DataTable etc
and are quite familiar with SQL statements. What else that is needed for
database-powered webpages?

--
Regards,
Pedestrian, Penang.

Message posted via DotNetMonster.com
http://www.dotnetmonster.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/asp-net/200703/1
 
J

John Timney \(MVP\)

Well you probably need to learn about stored procedures, and general
database configuration and maintenence - just so you undertsand the concepts
and terms in a conversation. Get to know the gridview and databinding to
controls in asp.net. The reason I suggest you learn about client code first
is that server code and output are hugely different - Gridview is a prime
example.

Just stick with what your doing, adding to your knowldge and you'll keep
improving.

Regards

John Timney (MVP)
http://www.johntimney.com
http://www.johntimney.com/blog
 
B

BusEdge

Thanks for your advice.... just curious why "... PHP and JSP... oh the
horror" ?

--
Regards,
Pedestrian, Penang.

Message posted via DotNetMonster.comhttp://www.dotnetmonster.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/asp-net/200703/1

Ok I was kidding to some extent, but since you asked ... this is a
Microsoft newsgroup, and PHP and JSP are non-Microsoft technologies.
Not that I have anything against PHP and JSP per se, it's just that
PHP, JSP and ASP.NET are all competing technologies that do pretty
much the same thing (I can already hear the sizzle of flames a-
coming). If you are just getting started, you should focus on one set
of technologies before learning the competing ones.

Brandon
 
L

Laurent Bugnion [MVP]

Hi,
Hi Laurent, thanks for your recommedation, I agree with you.
Refer to the above, Is the "Server-side development" you mentioned
refer purely to ASP.NET or ... ? I appreciate your reply.

Well, this is pretty much up to you. I like ASP.NET because it has a
very clean, object oriented concept, and C# is really fun to program. I
wouldn't recommend ASP anymore, because it's really old fashioned.
Depending on your infrastructure, you might want to try other frameworks
and/or languages.

Greetings,
Laurent
 
P

pedestrian via DotNetMonster.com

Thanks for the valuable reply. Gridview is the new control for data binding
that I've experienced before. I guess I have to find a way to stick with what
I'm doing because it's almost my habit to switch from learning a technology
to
another ...
Well you probably need to learn about stored procedures, and general
database configuration and maintenence - just so you undertsand the concepts
and terms in a conversation. Get to know the gridview and databinding to
controls in asp.net. The reason I suggest you learn about client code first
is that server code and output are hugely different - Gridview is a prime
example.

Just stick with what your doing, adding to your knowldge and you'll keep
improving.

Regards

John Timney (MVP)
http://www.johntimney.com
http://www.johntimney.com/blog
Hi, John, thanks for your reply. I started with basic ASP.NET with limited
HTML knowledge and just going to learn CSS. When I look at the web pages
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
and are quite familiar with SQL statements. What else that is needed for
database-powered webpages?

--
Regards,
Pedestrian, Penang.

Message posted via DotNetMonster.com
http://www.dotnetmonster.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/asp-net/200703/1
 
W

Will

For a good sequence

Basic HTML, beable to create basic static web pages.
CSS once you know the basic HTML, time to learn how to do layouts
correctly. Unfortunatly you will have to unlearn some basic HTML
stuff since most of thoses books use tables for layouts. goto
www.csszengarden.com/ and once you can generate your own design time
to move on.

Now go for Javascript since you are familiar with now HTML and CSS,
this is you first real programming language level item. Learn how to
change colors and display with pressing a button.

Now you have the basic foundation, the above will for the most part
not change, or if it does it will be very slowly.

Now for the server end languages. JSP, Ruby on Rails and asp.net are
the the 3 biggest ones you can use without paying to get the
software. If you want to work in a more Unix/Linux type environment
get JSP or Ruby on Rails, if you want to stick to the Microsoft world
get asp.net
 
L

Laurent Bugnion [MVP]

Hi,
Hi, thanks for sharing... I'm more familiar with VB.NET, however,
I used to learn some C++ I guess to learn C# it would be easier.

Just to be complete, you can very well program ASP.NET using VB.NET if
you prefer. C# is just more to my liking.

Greetings,
Laurent
 
P

pedestrian via DotNetMonster.com

Will said:
For a good sequence

Basic HTML, beable to create basic static web pages.
CSS once you know the basic HTML, time to learn how to do layouts
correctly. ...

Hi, thanks for your valuable advice...
 
G

Guest

pedestrian said:
With so many technologies around which include HTML, XML, Javascript, CSS,
ASP, ASP.NET (and PHP, JSP of course etc.)

What is the sequence for learning web programming? which come should be
learned first and which should come later? Which form the foundation?

My aim is to become a web developer for both commercial Intranet and Internet
application.
Thanks for sharing...

You can not rearn each technique in sequence, as they all cooperate to
form a web application. You have to learn a little of each to get a
grasp of how it all is working together.

A few things that are valuable to learn, though:

:: The client-server model used in web applications; how the browser
request pages and the server responds by creating the page.

:: The life cycle of the creating of a page; how the server creates an
html page from the source page, and what parts of the source code is
considered by the server and what parts are sent along to the browser.
 
G

Guest

pedestrian said:
Hi, thanks for sharing... I'm more familiar with VB.NET, however,
I used to learn some C++ I guess to learn C# it would be easier.

I would encourage you to give C# a try.

C# and VB.NET use the same framework and produce similar IL code, so
even if you decide that you like VB.NET better, you will have learned a
bit more about how VB.NET works by knowing a bit of C#.
 

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