Web Coding - Where to Begin...Again

[FOBSIDE]

So, I used to do my own web pages in college with notepad. Everything was static. I'm feeling the urge to start coding a bit again for kicks, but I have no idea where to begin. My knowledge of CSS is limited to editing and refreshing to see what changes were actually made. The new buzzword is obviously Web 2.0, but what are the standards? I know a bit of PHP, so if anyonoe has any ideas for things I can code, that would be cool. If anyone could point me in the right direction to start, that would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance for your replies.

 

[doornail]

Our latest project has been intranet web applications done in Python with data stored in PostgreSQL (on Linux). We're using CherryPy for the server, cheetah for templates, and SQLObject for the database interface.

This approach is definately off the beaten path of LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL and PHP) or .NET and hosting support would be minimal.

But ... it's soooo nice to work in Python and the libraries above make coding for the web a joy. Compared to PHP and ASP, it's much cleaner to code and maintain.

 

[FOBSIDE]

Cheetah looks like something of interest to me.

On a separate note, are CSS purists just full of themselves or is it the way web is headed? I look at CSS Zen Garden and my head spins. I have friends, who used to design and are/were pretty cutting edge, and they still use tables and just style them. They don't believe in running pure CSS. I looked at Digg.com and they don't seem to use tables, but Flickr does. I don't want to take the easy way out at the cost of falling behind once again by using something that will be phased out.

 

[doornail]

One think I love about Cheetah is it's not HTML specific, so you could use it to generate anything; XML, text, more source code, whatever and the syntax is lean, quick to pick up, and let's me do Python calls. And no opening and closing tags!

Here's a nice tutorial from IBM.

On pure CSS -

I knew a guy who deer hunted with a throwing knife. CSS purists remind me of that. All style aspects of my pages (fonts, weights, colors, borders, etc) I'll do in CSS but there's still plenty of utility left in HTML tables. Use what works for you.

 

[FOBSIDE]

Is there a protocol for writing the style sheet? Like do all generic styles go up top and then you go in order of how the elements appear, left to right and top to bottom, like reading? I'm looking at pages and some of them seem to be a free for all.

 

[imported_LoKe]

CSS based designs are far better than tables. For one, you're not repeating masses of code. It's cleaner and easier to debug when you're having a problem with a CSS design.

 

[FOBSIDE]

Can you simply explain to me how I can get two columns to sit side by side, with content starting at the top, and the columns extending 100% of the height of the browser? Basically I'm looking for a table with a height of 100%. In CSS I can't figure out how to get the content to start at the same height or the height of the element to stretch the full 100%. I know only because I am setting a background color.

 

[imported_LoKe]

The HTML

<div id="left"></div>
<div id="right"></div>

The CSS

#left {
float: left;
width:50%;
height:100%;
background-color:#555555;
}

#right {
float: right;
width:50%;
height:100%;
background-color:#333333;
}

 

[FOBSIDE]

Sounds good. I'll try it out later. Die, tables! Die! I think ESPN is the only commerce site that's currently using pure CSS. I'd hate to see the clusterf**k that Amazon would be with CSS only. Actually, it probably wouldn't be smart for a site like Amazon to do it, because of compatibility. That's one of the issues the head of design for ESPN brought up. http://devedge-temp.mozilla.org/viewsource/2003/espn-interview/01/index_en.html

 

[imported_LoKe]

Smile!

Oh the fun that is CSS!
Boredom has struck again.

 

[FOBSIDE]

Firefox likes that. Safari doesn't It shows the smiley face, and then a bunch of blocks forced to the far right.

 

[Atheus]

Originally posted by: LoKe
Smile!

Oh the fun that is CSS!
Boredom has struck again.

lol looks messed up in Opera tho

So are you making any money off that chamicalbreakdown site yet? Or is that not your intention?

 

[imported_LoKe]

Meh. Works fine in IE/FF, not going to fix it. Just having fun.

 

[imported_LoKe]

Originally posted by: Atheus

Originally posted by: LoKe
Smile!

Oh the fun that is CSS!
Boredom has struck again.

lol

So are you making any money off that chamicalbreakdown site yet? Or is that not your intention?

I put a single ad on it. I had hoped to cover hosting costs, but you don't get paid until you make $100 initially, then $50 after that. I'm holding strong at $16.40. No one clicks the ads.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Originally posted by: FOBSIDE
So, I used to do my own web pages in college with notepad. Everything was static. I'm feeling the urge to start coding a bit again for kicks, but I have no idea where to begin. My knowledge of CSS is limited to editing and refreshing to see what changes were actually made. The new buzzword is obviously Web 2.0, but what are the standards? I know a bit of PHP, so if anyonoe has any ideas for things I can code, that would be cool. If anyone could point me in the right direction to start, that would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance for your replies.

Step 1. Web devlopment is NOT coding. It is not software. Jsut remember that. It's a far cry from C/C++ and Java CODE.

having said that. I've done some web dev at work and CSS is important to know. XML is also important along with XSLT. And learn SQL. And of course, XHTML (not HTML).

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: IHateMyJob2004

Originally posted by: FOBSIDE
So, I used to do my own web pages in college with notepad. Everything was static. I'm feeling the urge to start coding a bit again for kicks, but I have no idea where to begin. My knowledge of CSS is limited to editing and refreshing to see what changes were actually made. The new buzzword is obviously Web 2.0, but what are the standards? I know a bit of PHP, so if anyonoe has any ideas for things I can code, that would be cool. If anyone could point me in the right direction to start, that would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance for your replies.

Step 1. Web devlopment is NOT coding. It is not software. Jsut remember that. It's a far cry from C/C++ and Java CODE.

having said that. I've done some web dev at work and CSS is important to know. XML is also important along with XSLT. And learn SQL. And of course, XHTML (not HTML).

Um, sure it's coding. It's just not compiled into a native portable executable format.

 

[Atheus]

Originally posted by: IHateMyJob2004

Originally posted by: FOBSIDE
So, I used to do my own web pages in college with notepad. Everything was static. I'm feeling the urge to start coding a bit again for kicks, but I have no idea where to begin. My knowledge of CSS is limited to editing and refreshing to see what changes were actually made. The new buzzword is obviously Web 2.0, but what are the standards? I know a bit of PHP, so if anyonoe has any ideas for things I can code, that would be cool. If anyone could point me in the right direction to start, that would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance for your replies.

Step 1. Web devlopment is NOT coding. It is not software. Jsut remember that. It's a far cry from C/C++ and Java CODE.

having said that. I've done some web dev at work and CSS is important to know. XML is also important along with XSLT. And learn SQL. And of course, XHTML (not HTML).

Of course it's coding, it is the writing of code, even something like HTML is a code.

If you mean "it's not programming", well, it is if you use a programming language. HTML, CSS, etc are formatting languages obviously, but many programming languages are used server-side in web apps. I'm currently working on a site using 3 programming languages - Java (jsp), PHP, and javascript.

 

[GotGoose]

Here are some links to get you started

http://www.w3schools.com/
http://www.alvit.de/handbook/
http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/
http://www.kayodeok.btinternet.co.uk/favorites/webdesign.htm

Good icons:
*really good* -> http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/
http://www.websiteicons.com/#

Some random CSS websites from my bookmarks:

http://www.alistapart.com/
http://www.positioniseverything.net/
http://www.simplebits.com/
http://www.skimcss.com/skimlist
http://www.stunicholls.myby.co.uk/
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/livedesign/
http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=BoxModelHack
http://css.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000400051232/
http://www.petefreitag.com/item/475.cfm
http://dezwozhere.com/links.html
http://css.maxdesign.com.au/index.htm
http://www.quirksmode.org/css/forms.html
http://www.sitevista.com/cssvista/
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/10/12/480242.aspx
http://pro.html.it/articoli/id_599/idcat_31/pag_1/pag.html
http://nostrich.net/archives/css-thumbnail-gallery/
http://www.svendtofte.com/code/max_width_in_ie/
http://www.ibloomstudios.com/article6/
http://24ways.org/advent/tables-with-style
http://www.complexspiral.com/publications/containing-floats/
http://apples-to-oranges.com/blog/article.aspx?id=55

Hope this helps.