| If you are planning to become a serious player in the | | | | 3. Learn A Server Side Language |
| webdesign world, you should now what to learn and | | | | This is needed to make dynamic websites like |
| discover. Here's a short list that gives you an | | | | forums. PHP and ASP are a great example. You will |
| overview of your needs. | | | | need to understand what you can do with these |
| 1. Learn HTML | | | | languages and start using them. |
| Before you start creating websites you should | | | | Without a server side language your websites are |
| master HTML. This is the key element to even start | | | | really hard to maintain and will give you a hard job in |
| publishing documents on the web. This sounds pretty | | | | creating an efficient website structure. |
| obvious but there are some elements that you | | | | 4. Learn A Database Language |
| should understand like the label element which will add | | | | I recommend learning MySQL since this is an open |
| great usability to a form. | | | | source database and is installed on most hosting |
| 2. Master Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) | | | | providers in combination with PHP. |
| I can't stress this enough. DO NOT USE TABLES FOR | | | | A database is nothing else then some tables with |
| YOUR LAYOUT! | | | | data. You can select data with queries like: |
| Is it clear? Don't, just don't. Why? Because they | | | | SELECT * FROM table WHERE ID = 3; |
| work against you instead of for you. You can have | | | | Now everything is selected from table when the ID |
| so much more control of your layout, design and | | | | equals three. It's not hard to understand SQL, you |
| colors if you use 100% CSS. | | | | just need to know how it works. PHPMyAdmin can |
| 1. CSS is easy | | | | help you a lot when you are creating your database. |
| 2. CSS is fast to create | | | | So, start with step 1, and stick with CSS as long as |
| 3. CSS is lightning fast when your website loads | | | | you don't master it. CSS is huge, and you will love it |
| 4. CSS is easy to modify | | | | once you know how it works. |
| So forget table layouts and start using stylesheets. | | | | For application development you can't do without a |
| You will really like the things you can accomplish once | | | | language like PHP and a database like MySQL. |
| you master them. | | | | |