What a Web Developer should know?

[ITlover]

Hello

What a person should know inorder to become a professional Web Developer?

What contents of web designing should a person know inorder to become a professional Web Developer?


Regards,

[mrdeeye]

To me a "professional" is someone who does something for money. I have done a couple sites for other people for a fee and all I know is XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets and some basic graphic stuff. I am working on more interactive stuff like Javascript and PHP right now.

Right now i would focus on the basics, so try to get some XHTML & CSS under your belt. I have a good tutorial I found searching on google. here

it walks you through making a site with css....it gives you a good idea on what css is all about and headed me in the right direction. Hope that helps.

-deeye

[dj4uk]

I've seen "professional" web developers that barely know HTML!

Ideally though - HTML, CSS, JavaScript and ensure you are creating valid code according to the standards - many don't! Also I think the sign of a professional is someone that creates websites that work for everyone not just people with 1024x768 screen resolution on IE. It would also be cool to look into Website accessibility http://www.w3.org/wai as not many website currently conform to these standards.

If you are gonna develop server-side you'll need to learn ASP, ASP.NET, PHP, JSP or something similar along with a suitable database application.

Oh and it helps to have a bit of flair when it comes to the looks and structure of the website!

HTH

DJ

[mairving]

I would put people in a several categories.

• Web Designer - could care less about the code and whether it validates. Main focus is on the look and design of the site. Generally artist types.
• Web Code Monkey - could care less about the look and the design of the site. The only thing that is cared about is the code. Some coders write some good clean code but their HTML is pretty shoddy. Most will specialize in one or two coding languages like PHP, ASP usually with a database backend.
• Web Developer - someone who is involved in every aspect of the site from design to writing the code. Needs a pretty broad general knowledge of everything from DNS to HTML to Optimizing images.

So basically you have those that code and those that design and the happy medium somewhere in between. It seems that most people tend to lean towards the design or the code after awhile. As a general rule it seems that a lot of designers are not all that great at coding and vice versa.

I think that it is good to start off with the basics as suggested. You should know HTML, CSS, Graphics starting off. After that learning a scripting language like PHP, ASP, etc. is a good idea. With that you should learn the at least the basics of good database design.The major thing is to constantly refine and reuse code. Don't try to reinvent the wheel on every site. Again you don't have to learn all of this. It has been mentioned that plenty of web developers that don't know HTML. I would call them more designers than developers but you can certainly specialize. If you are a good designer but a poor coder, then team up with someone who is a good coder but a bad designer and you may find things easier.