Good starter web design language

Wouldn't the one everyone else is using be the most useful?

Steve

I think the most common are java, perl, and php.

You WILL have to learn HTML as you need it for every language you mentioned.

As for the languages you mentioned, they are all for different uses. PHP is for server-side programming, JavaScript is local. Anyway, do some research. But you have to master HTML in order to be productive with these languages.

As for Web Design, the best combination is HTML with CSS.

Wanna see what you can do with CSS, have fun here: www.csszengarden.com
This is the best way to design web sites: HTML and CSS, because you will get compatibility and you will get a nice design! (If you are talented, of course :P)

Yeah, just to reiterate what InfoDav just said, PHP is server-side. Unless you're planning on writing scripts of any kind, then I think you're looking for HTML. The only way to display anything on a page is through HTML... the rest are all code-only. Javascript can be used for nifty design effects, and InfoDav already described CSS.

Perl and php are server side, in fact java can be to although most often its affiliated with applets.

Yes, you think...

Yea, yea I havent done alot of web development lately, to me its the Mcdonalds fry cook of computer development.

Dreamweaver.........

Start with HTML and CSS

If you "hear of a bunch of languages" is because you need to know the very first basics of HTML and alike. w3schools can teach you the basics, and I like them because they actually _convince_ you to adopt standards, and that's a good thing, really. There are html, css, xml etc. tutorials and info on the net (google) as there are stars on the universe

Think of HTML mostly as static things, as the basic, where all other things will converge. CSS is to set up structure and looks of the site easily on one file (this is probably the main purpose), so you can change one file and change the appearance of all the pages that use the CSS file.

When it come to scripts, you will find Javascript as the most used, i think. scripts can add functionality and some dinamic stuff on the site, like changing images, interact with the mouse and lots of other small things.

Much more advanced (in terms of structure required and also knowledge) there are the server side applications. They are used, for an example, to communicate the site with other things that are not web sites on nature (that is why I use those mainly). For an example, you can use databases and inter-communicate with web pages, as these beeing the "user portal" to change the data.

Sorry if I'm wrong, I'm not a professional web designer, just a curious guy. And you can do everything with the tools available, from the basic basic to the really advanced. I didn't try to cover all aspects and uses, as it would take _some_ time to, but you got the idea.

Start with HTML and CSS, that's for sure, and that's what you will use 95% of the time, on normal, "light" situations.

As a very basic example, I did the following site as a demonstration to someone in a day and also to host my guides (the coding itself and that took only minutes). It is XHTML 1.1 and CSS certified by the W3 Validator. Not beautiful, but useful. Anyway, i did it in a hurry and updated only the info since that.

http://geocities.com/davidcesarino/p...ndex-enus.html

Actually, if you try to validate, it won't because Geocities put some very nasty code on the pages it hosts that won't validate even if you try as HTML 4.01 Transitional, i believe, but _my_ code _is_ xhtml 1.1.

Just an example of PHP and WHY HTML is a necessity to PHP and ASP.

Sorry for the really long lines I just wanted to Illustrate that due to the way
things have to break up in server side code sometimes the HTML is hard to follow until it gets parsed by the server.

By the way this website is generated useing about 5megs of PHP code that dynamically generates these webpages based on a database. Look at the website URL. See all that stuff after the ?. That tells the website that you are viewing, posting, or somthing else, and what the Topic is. Then the PHP generates the HTML putting in info from a Database and then sends it to the browser which makes things the way you see them

There is a difference between "design" and "engineering" and I think many are confused over these terms.

The code language is the engineering aspect; it is the structural framework upon which an idea is presented.

The presentation itself is where the idea of design becomes important. For marketable web design skills you'll need to know not only how things are put together, but WHY things should be put together in a way that will attract and engage your audience.

Important subjects for successful web design includes color theory, spatial relationships, and other areas of marketing psychology such as typography, contrast, consistency, etc.

Remember that technical knowledge alone will not make a successful site.

Don't get the wrong impression, PHP is capable of much more. But typically, PHP's most popular use (and is used by vB, the forum script NotebookForums uses) is interfacing with databases, the most popular being MySQL. Once you design a page using HTML and are happy with the design (and comfortable with the language) and decide you'd like to make it more interactive, I'd definitely look into PHP.

The book I used is called PHP: Fast and Easy. However, this was 4-5 years ago, and I'm not sure if its in print anymore... I believe it was printed by PrimaNet. As for HTML? I don't know what to recommend... I kind of picked it up on my own. Once you get into it, you'll find that HTML is a very, VERY basic language. Of course, its not designed to be complex.

As for HTML, I'd look into something like DreamWeaver, a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editor... it'll allow you to create something using GUI tools and observe the changes to the HTML code each one entails. My recommendation? Try it and play with it, you'll learn it that much better.

EDIT: Wouldn't HTML be the design? The engineering is what will drive the design... hence, the server-side languages (and client-side like JS).

By "design" I meant the planned strategies (style, focus, ergonomics) through which the engineering work (programming) is guided.

In this day of powerful yet intuitive editing software such as Dreamweaver, actual coding is not as important as creating an engaging and functional layout.

You can be an HTML guru and memorize every operable syntax for every command tag, but you will fail to produce a successful site without design skills.

I agree completely. I am into hardware, network, and systems engineering so for me web development is trivial but thats becuase im focused on the engineering.

The design process is a whole nother ball of wax and a good designer is someone to hold onto.

HTML, CSS, Javascript, and PHP.

These are four must-haves for sure. Personally, I don't find Perl/ASP/etc. to be any more useful than PHP. You should also be artistically-inclined and know how to make an aesthetically and logically designed web page/site. As mentioned above, knowing the code is only half the deal - you need both aspects in some way or another (either yourself or a partner).

I'm currently learning PHP and the stuff you can do with it with HTML and MySQL is pretty cool. Highly recommend it once you master HTML.

That's not why I said, "Yes, you think..."

I meant that the base is HTML through and through, you listed a bunch of scripting languages, which are in and of themselves useless as far as creating a website, while HTML... I hope you get the point.

Well, if you're new to web design, I highly recommend that you learn the XHTML standard, instead of HTML, as that is the way things are going. Make sure to learn CSS as well, and do not design web pages using Internet Explorer. Use a standards-compliant browser (e.g. Firefox) when making your websites, and afterwards, make sure that they work with IE as well.

Basic web design rules:
- Do not use tables for your layouts. Use them for data that needs to be stored in a table though, if you need to
- Make use of <div> and <span> tags for layout and text styling
- Make sure your HTML or XHTML is valid, same applies to CSS
- Once you have come up with a design, get other peoples' opinions on it ASAP
- Try not to use Javascript unless completely necessary
- Do not use background music

As for server-side languages, those are mainly for interacting with databases or files. For example, this forum uses a combination of PHP and MySQL. You cannot make dynamic websites without a server-side scripting language like PHP or ASP.