(The Complete?) Web Development Guide

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MstrBob

Alright, mainly inspired by this thread: http://www.webdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=45595

I present to you the idea of a Web Development Guide. You know, you're good old "How to make a website" guide. Well, actually, more like: "How to Make a Proper Website" guide. All the guides out there don't teach properly. This is why there is so much confusion and anti-W3C thoughts out there. There's no place guiding you in creating a website the proper way. W3Schools is great, but it breaks it up into learning the technologies. The best bet is to aim for those who are just starting out. Those who are confused and look for the simple how to make a website guides. Who need help putting it together. Not so much a series of guides on HTML and CSS and the like, but a series which teaches how to create a website.

And damnit, this won't fall through like the Internet Bible! No, I forbid it! Forget things like management systems, hosting, and design. If we pooled together and started writing some guides, than we could actually do this. And create a rich resource to guide those in creating modern websites that are accessible and future friendly.

johndoe190

This is a good idea one in which i would be happy to contribute to by writing some articles.

MstrBob

Thanks sharkey. If need be, this can be hosted off of my website, nice and ad free (I've got a lot of space and bandwith). I really think that if we start gathering some articles this will actually happen and won't die (Like the Internet Bible thing). So, come on people, you've got ideas, don't you? A name for it? How should the articles be written? What should be cover? That sort of thing.

sciguyryan

Yea, a very good idea. I would also be interested in helping with this .

RyanJ

the_tree

Sounds good, but who's gonna do all the... y'know stuff. You'd need somewhere to put these guides.

Jona

[font=trebuchet ms]Good idea, Bob. How can I contribute?[/font]

MstrBob

Yes, we of course need a website. That's easy enough, there are tons of free hosts and cheap hosts out there, and as I said, I could host it as well. Making a website isn't difficult (especially for a forum of web developers) and I don't want to get hung up on the technicalities. If somebody wants to design something, then design away. But until this actually gets off the ground I think we should push actually getting some articles written and to get enough support so that it goes somewhere. If we get enough people involved, than this will actually work out.

We should organize it all in this thread. That way it's open and everyone can know what's going on. Basically we're looking to create guides to take the beginner through the world of making semantic, accessible, cross-browser, appealing websites. Step by step, and do it right the first time. After all, making standards-compliant, user friendly websites isn't hard at all when you know what you're doing. So the goal here is to provide the resources neccesssary.

Jona

[font=trebuchet ms]I'd be happy to make a design. Are we going to have staff members, like www.webdevfaqs.com does, along with guest articles?[/font]

MstrBob

Sorry Jona, started writing before your post. This needs to be organized, so if we want to do this properly we'll need writers, of course. Perhaps an editor or two. Of course, we need a website as well! Whichever is your srtrength, or you think you'll be best at. But before people start writing articles, perhaps we should work out a basic outline of the guide?

Jona

[font=trebuchet ms]Sure thing, I'm prepared to contribute whenever and wherever possible, that's all. [/font]

the_tree

Outline. Well you'd have pages on How to add content, how to style it, how to get content, what hosts are good etc etc. It needent be a start here then finish there thing, it could be all cross referenced, like how people actualy do learn.

Ben_Rogers

On the previous thread, I already offered to do an outline, and I'm working on it right now (would be finished, but the tractor shed's roof was leaking; had to help teh dad shingle it- we ran out of shingles. :p). Once the outline is done, people can write up certain sections, and then people can edit them. Also, once we're done, we could probably put it up on Webdev faqs, so we needn't worry about design or hosting. Also, don't worry about structuring it until we're done.

JavaHead_Jonnie

I would love to get involved with this (I sort of had the idea here).

In my opinion, one of the first articles that should be written shouldn't actually be about coding, but about planning and the tools O' the trade. Ive noticed that alot of sites have great concept and a design that sounds good in your head, but not online.

Perhaps a guide showing people how to plan - and how with planning you don't need an awful lot of expensive programs to make a decent site - would be nice.

Ben_Rogers

It's not a series of articles, it's more of a walkthrough.

MstrBob

Originally posted by Ben R.
On the previous thread, I already offered to do an outline, and I'm working on it right now (would be finished, but the tractor shed's roof was leaking; had to help teh dad shingle it- we ran out of shingles. :p). Once the outline is done, people can write up certain sections, and then people can edit them. Also, once we're done, we could probably put it up on Webdev faqs, so we needn't worry about design or hosting. Also, don't worry about structuring it until we're done.

I thought about that. I don't know, it's just that I haven't seen any work on it in... well, actually, I don't recall ever seeing work on it. But it's just been static. I know that Ryan, Khalid, and Dave are busy. I was planning to see this as being more of a site with articles and guides on development. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't webdevfaqs.com geared towards answering common web development questions? The idea here is to guide begginners into the art of making websites, and perhaps even expand it to include guides for experienced developers to enhance their sites and change over towards CSS and more accessible websites.

For this here guide, should not we start with the basics of how a website is made? Many beginners when starting out, are just figuring out how a website works. Maybe a nice, brief, not to technical explanation of a website's different components and how they fit together? And then you could start in with some basic HTML. And then some basic CSS for styling it. And then you could keep going with a bit more HTML, and a bit more CSS for styling. That way, while learning, people can see results and make it while not using presentational markup.

JavaHead_Jonnie

Sorry, bad wording; I'm asuming that you'd have to have the walkthrough organised/split up into chapters/sections or whatever. I was just suggesting a topic for a section.

Also, as well as a walkthrough, resources, links etc. maybe have a section of seperate tutorials on ways of improving your site with scrpting languages, PHP, ASP etc.?

Ben_Rogers

Yeah, I get you Bob. Attached is the outline, I think it's fine the way it is for now.

Jona

Originally posted by MstrBob
I know that Ryan, Khalid, and Dave are busy. I was planning to see this as being more of a site with articles and guides on development. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't webdevfaqs.com geared towards answering common web development questions? The idea here is to guide begginners into the art of making websites, and perhaps even expand it to include guides for experienced developers to enhance their sites and change over towards CSS and more accessible websites.

[font=trebuchet ms]Word. Why not make a whole web site out of the idea, and get a domain?[/font]

MstrBob

Ah, Ben, very, very nice. That's a great outline, with a nice logical flow. My only concern is the styling, or lack there of. When people learn, they like to see results. With your method, people will see results rather quickly, which is good. But upon doing something like a heading, they'll want to do something like change it's color. I'm unsure how we can implement styling without (1)Overloading readers or (2)Dragging it out too long We don't want people going into presentational markup, so it's just going to be trying to implement styling slowly. But I think it can be incorporated into that outline.

Ben_Rogers

Yeah, I see your point, but hopefully, we can make the tags part fast. It'd probably be a <dl> like <p> - denounces a paragraph, <strong> - denounces strong emphasis; and then afterwards right on to spiffifying it.