Dấn thân vào thế giới web

Web, một từ rất đơn giản gồm 3 ký tự nhưng đằng sau nó là cả 1 núi các công nghệ và kỹ thuật để có thể làm nên từ này. Bài này mình chỉ nêu lên những kiến thức cơ sở khi chúng ta bắt đầu học về WEB.
Như bài trước chúng ta đã hiểu thế nào là website và ta cũng hiểu client side và server side. Vậy ở client side ta cần biết những gì và server side ta cần biết những gì.

Vermis - Fix my bug

Sau khi update cái patch mình làm thêm thì phát sinh ra 1 lỗi đó là hiển thị ngày giờ không đúng khi Edit 1 issue. Lý do là trong database thì ngày giờ mình set là bigint nên khi show lên textbox thì nó chi show lên toàn là số với số. Một số bạn không để ý nên khi update status của issue thì ngày start-date và due-date bị sai hết.
Mất khoảng 2 giờ để tìm kiếm thì phát hiện ra mình đi lạc lối, trở lại với đúng với lối đi thì tốn 15p để chỉnh lại trong controller là xong.
Đúng là khi lạc lối thì có kiếm cỡ nào cũng không ra giải pháp.

Website là gì?

Bài viết đầu tiên trong kế hoạch soạn tài liệu hướng dẫn PHP. Mọi người xem nhưng đừng chém em nó quá nha.

• Về khía cạnh người dùng: website là 1 trang thông tin mà khi họ mở IE hoặc FF lên và gõ địa chỉ thì website hiển thị. Đối với end-user thì website bao gồm hình ảnh, text, flash.

• Về khía cạnh kỹ thuật: website là 1 file có định dạng HTML. “Định dạng” nghĩa là sao? Dưới đây là 1 VD về định dạng

Bắt đầu soạn tài liệu hướng dẫn học lập trình web với ngôn ngữ PHP và Mysql

Hôm nay, mình chính thức bắt đầu đầu tư thời gian vào việc viết các tài liệu hướng dẫn lập trình PHP ( cơ bản và hơn cơ bản ). Sở dĩ mình nói hơn cơ bản là vì học thì không bao giờ hết nên không có cái gọi là khái niệm nâng cao, chúng ta luôn luôn ở mức cơ bản trong việc học.
Đây là đề mục phát thảo ban đầu:

1. Tổng quan
- Đối tượng xem tài liệu này.
- Website là gì?
- Phải học những gì để làm được 1 website "Hello world"?
- Làm thế nào để đưa website lên mạng?
- Client side là gì? Server side là gì?
- Có bao nhiêu ngôn ngữ client site?
- Có bao nhiêu ngôn ngữ Server site?
2. Ngôn ngữ PHP
- Còn tiếp......

If I Had Started Web Design Today (And You?)

It has been ~15 years that I've been into web design where the first 5 was totally amateur, 7 years were for creating client projects and the last 3 is focused on personal ones.

When looking back, I'm thankful to many stuff that helped me improve my skills on web design/development. And, there are some important ones that makes me say "I wish I had..".

This article is mostly focused on the "I wish" part hoping it may help anyone who is new to web design.

They are not the absolute truths, in fact, they may be wrong. They are simply my thoughts based on what I experienced. You decide if they'll fit you or not.

So, starting now. If I had started web design today, I would (share yours in the comments):

Start With PHP

When I started web development, the stability of open source was still a question mark and developers were discussing whether ASP or PHP was more powerful.

As a user of Windows, having Ms Access already installed in my PC and no idea what MySQL was, I started with ASP. Bang!.. wrong move.

ASP is not developed further after 2000 however PHP is improved so much and so is its community, tutorials, etc. Today, it is clearly the most popular scripting language.

There are also many other great languages like Python, Perl, ASP.NET, Ruby, etc. However, learning the most popular one at first is the easiest, most functional and you can better decide which other language you want to learn after that.

Learn JavaScript Very Well

JavaScript was always popular but never as this much. And every new day makes it more popular and required.

It was mostly used for form validations, displaying alerts or pop-ups and knowing few things about it was enough.

Today, it is hard to think of a non-Ajaxed web application, we can pull tweets, Flickr images, draw images, implement animations and much more.

Also, it is the best cure for the biggest headache: browser incompatibilities. And, the HTML5 world will push it more.

Use Frameworks

To me, words like CodeIgniter, Zend, MooTools or jQuery sounded like totally new languages and didn't know why to use them when I already can do anything I want.

After spending few hours to understand their basics and experiencing them, that was the moment when I realized I was coding so slow and not.. that organized.

Why not use something that enables to manipulate images or upload files with ready-to-go functions and validate forms or use Ajax easily and better?

There are awesome frameworks for every language, just spend some time on reading/understanding them, choose one and master it.

Store Snippets

Within time, you start re-coding stuff like a contact form, an e-mail validation pattern ,etc.

I started storing such snippets ~3 years ago (better late than ever) and it now takes me to build a membership module (new user, e-mail validation, forgot password & login) no more than 15 minutes.

Also, in every project, take a little time to look skeptically on the snippets used that will help you to figure out any possible bugs and make the code better (if needed).

Store (or Bookmark) Resources

While building something, I used to say "I had seen something nice that would fit here but can't remember the URL". Pretty sure, you live that too.

Whether it is an icon set, an application or a tutorial, store or bookmark them with a good categorization. That saves too much time.

Learn Tricks Of Image Editing

If you design a website in an image editing application (like Photoshop) and it gets too much time of yours to make it look good, then you may be missing the tricks as they are the one that makes the difference.

Not everyone is a designer, that's ok (I'm not as well) but learning tricks like using filters, gradients, patterns or effects can convert a standard object into something impressive.

Besides the basics, make sure you learn them (following tutorials is a great way).

Never Build A CMS

Many developers don't like ready-to-use codes but prefer to build everything from scratch. That has a reason: "it is usually harder to learn another system compared to building your own".

By thinking the same, I have built various CMSs for years, small to complicated ones or project-specific ones to smarter ones that would fit many projects.

When I look back, I see that none of them were better than WordPress, Drupal, ExpressionEngine, Modx, etc.

There are lots of talented designers/developers creating themes and plugins for these platforms that are making them better and better everyday. Just pick one and become an expert on that.

Start Writing A Blog On Web Design

Even if you are not an expert in a field, writing about a subject helps improving yourself so much.

You share your knowledge, then work hard to share more and better, others comment to your thoughts and so. It is a recursive learning process.

And, meeting new people about the subject is another big plus.

Focus More On Personal Projects

I'm pretty sure every web designer/developer has a great project in mind for months/years but couldn't bring it to life because of the client projects.

Same for me. After 7 years of client projects, decided to quit them all and started building the ones in my mind.

I'm definitely not saying you should do that because it is risky and requires the right time.

However, personal projects are usually more satisfactory as the playground is totally yours and at least making few of them online will be great. They will grow within time (while you're still into client projects) and can easily become your first job (which is good to have options if you ever want to quit client jobs).

Resource from http://www.webresourcesdepot.com/if-i-had-started-web-design-today-and-you/comment-page-1/#comment-184554