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[Buckethead]

I can't speak to the alternatives but Code Academy is pretty shit for deconstructing topics and some of their code is janky as hell.

The option to code as you learn is nice but would recommend HTML + CSS.

 

[Ikuu]

I found I learned nothing from Codecademy, like I'd do the lessons and not remember any of it. I found Code School better, though to be honest I've learned more from trying to build something and just Googling any issue I come across.

 

[out0v0rder]

yeah codeacademy doesnt really teach you too much in regards to "real world" usage. its pretty good for getting an understanding of the syntax and semantics of the languages though.

 

[Daffy Duck]

I started off with codeacademy but I seemed to find I'd type exactly what was needed but it would never work, there was also other errors with code seemingly not updating, I tried in all browsers and got the same result.

Binned it off after that and just got a load of books to read through.

 

[PetriP-TNT]

yeah codeacademy doesnt really teach you too much in regards to "real world" usage. its pretty good for getting an understanding of the syntax and semantics of the languages though.

Only thing that teaches you "real world" usage is:

Spoiler

doing real world stuff

Semantics and syntax is the thing that matters, in the end of the day the end result is still a combination of stuff, things, workarounds and hacks for that one browser version that just doesn't play nice with display: inline-block (replace it to whatever CSS attribute you find).

Disclaimer: this is just my personal experience, YMMV

 

[Letterbomb]

Alright. YMMV is a new one to me. More acronyms to learn, yaaaay.

So my graphic designer that I've used for two years now is super busy until the start of next year. Boo. Really want to get my site up and running before Jan 1, so I can start writing content at the start of the year. A bunch of web designers in here...anyone a general graphic designer too, willing to give me an estimate on an identity job? (branding/logos/icons/probably website design too lol I'm lazy). Shoot me a PM if so. For now I'll take a stab at making my own theme, but I won't go near graphic design stuff on my own (logos).

And responsive design... Gah I haven't done this yet. Only had to worry about browser compatibility in the past. Varying performance dependent on the device is new to me. Don't really know where to start... DOM manipulation obviously....??? lmao jQuery / Bootstrap essential?

This post was more random thoughts than I intended. Sorry.

 

[PetriP-TNT]

I was doing something and I got bit sidetracked and now I got... this:

http://jsfiddle.net/hov38awb/6/embedded/result/

so umm, enjoy

edit: more. EPILEPSY WARNING

http://petetnt.github.io/lasercatz/

 

[Buckethead]

Anyone in here have much experience negotiating/asking for raises?

I have my annual review in a couple months and am trying to figure out to tactfully and professionally bring that discussion to the table.

 

[dokish]

So... I fully uploaded my website. But it doesn't appear. Yes I uploaded to the root folder.

I tried putting a few /xxx.html - imagining it was a problem with the index only - but nothing came up.

I made websites loooong time ago, maybe in early 2000s. Maybe something today happened? I know I correctly uploaded everything to the FTP. But the site doesn't show up. I uploaded with Adobe Muse.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

So... I fully uploaded my website. But it doesn't appear. Yes I uploaded to the root folder.

I tried putting a few /xxx.html - imagining it was a problem with the index only - but nothing came up.

I made websites loooong time ago, maybe in early 2000s. Maybe something today happened? I know I correctly uploaded everything to the FTP. But the site doesn't show up. I uploaded with Adobe Muse.

Perhaps you need to upload to the /www folder and not the root /?

 

[jokkir]

Where can I learn about jQuery and about Javascript using node.js, angular.js and whatnot? I used codeacademy but need more resources. I think I'm going to learn it from the beginning again.

 

[dokish]

Perhaps you need to upload to the /www folder and not the root /?

Tried everything.

I used Muse, specifically uploaded everything to /www and tried using CuteFTP as well and nothing seems to works. WTF?

 

[Ikuu]

Where can I learn about jQuery and about Javascript using node.js, angular.js and whatnot? I used codeacademy but need more resources. I think I'm going to learn it from the beginning again.

Code School is only $9 for the first month and has classes for all of those, which should be a good start.

 

[BeatResetsTheWorld]

I have a question for you guys about radio buttons. So, is the only way to group them together by wrapping them in a form? I have some elements that might be dynamically generated and...somewhat spread out around the page.

Basically boxes that can be uniquely selected (hence the chose of using radio buttons). Seems a bit weird I would have to wrap them all in a form. Is there anyway to define a radio group or something like that, that will do the same thing?

 

[PetriP-TNT]

I have a question for you guys about radio buttons. So, is the only way to group them together by wrapping them in a form? I have some elements that might be dynamically generated and...somewhat spread out around the page.

Basically boxes that can be uniquely selected (hence the chose of using radio buttons). Seems a bit weird I would have to wrap them all in a form. Is there anyway to define a radio group or something like that, that will do the same thing?

You can have radio buttons anywhere as long as they share the same name attribute

http://jsfiddle.net/e9vk6unL/

Radio buttons that have the same value for the name attribute are in the same "radio button group"; only one radio button in a group can be selected at one time.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/Input

 

[Tristam]

So... I fully uploaded my website. But it doesn't appear. Yes I uploaded to the root folder.

I tried putting a few /xxx.html - imagining it was a problem with the index only - but nothing came up.

I made websites loooong time ago, maybe in early 2000s. Maybe something today happened? I know I correctly uploaded everything to the FTP. But the site doesn't show up. I uploaded with Adobe Muse.

What web server are you running? Apache? Might want to check the settings in httpd.conf.

 

[Rich!]

So uh, I just said "fuck it" and designed a page around a bootstrap template. It's unfinished, but it seems to be alright. I read up on the usage rights for the code, and it's fine to use commercially too which is ideal. Got it up and running with google analytics now which is lovely.

Any opinions on it?



Quote to see the link, don't want random lurkers knowing who pays me to do website designs (of which this is my first lol). Bootstrap seems like an ideal starting point for learning - it's all logically laid out, easy to manipulate and the code makes sense to me. Also, it's all responsive!

 

[Syphon Filter]

Anyone know how account representative and a web developer go together? Someone saw my resume which was tailored for a web developer position but for some reason i got contacted for a account representative position. So i am wondering how they think i am a fit with the resume being web developer tailored. Is there any connection?

 

[Buckethead]

Anyone know how account representative and a web developer go together? Someone saw my resume which was tailored for a web developer position but for some reason i got contacted for a account representative position. So i am wondering how they think i am a fit with the resume being web developer tailored. Is there any connection?

You would be selling sites instead of working on them. The connection is you'd probably know how to accurately estimate them. I don't know your experience level but they may be intending to bring you on in that capacity before hiring you as a developer.

I wouldn't do it, sales jobs tend to be shady, and that's not my cup of juice.

 

[Syphon Filter]

You would be selling sites instead of working on them. The connection is you'd probably know how to accurately estimate them. I don't know your experience level but they may be intending to bring you on in that capacity before hiring you as a developer.

I wouldn't do it, sales jobs tend to be shady, and that's not my cup of juice.

Yea i figured it wasn't for me. I want to develop.

 

[Endgegner]

Newbie checking in here. I want to learn coding and made a couple of attempts in the past, but none really came to fruition. I did some tutorials in the past, but because my learning was mainly theoretic (doing excercises on Codeacademy), I never got to the point where I really felt that I really got a good, basic understanding of web development. To change that, I thought it would be a good idea to set myself a real goal and do tutorials alongside the development that page.
My idea was to do a recipe page where the user has multiple ways to get recipes. The user can search for recipe names, search for specific attributes ("I need 3 recipes with meat, 2 vegetarian" or "1 thai style dish, 1 italian style") or can get recipes based on the stuff he has at home.

Stuff I want the page to have:

- Database with recipes
- Categories/tags for recipes
- Photos for the dishes
- Ability for the user to let the page generate recipes (e.g. users clicks on cheap and vegetables and the page will generate a list of cheap vegetarian dishes). Optionally for multiple dishes at once.
- "In the refrigerator option": site generates recipes based on a list of ingredients that the user inputs (e.g. "eggs, milk, flour" -> pancake recipe).
- Responsive design would be a plus
- Additional blog page


My question would be what skills would I need to develop a page with those features. HTML, CSS, Javascript plus X? Do I need something else for the database like php? Should I use some framework?
Is it remotely realistic for a beginner to do a page like this? I'm not in a hurry and willing to learn a lot but obviously also don't want to frustrate myself with an impossible task.

 

[Ikuu]

Is it remotely realistic for a beginner to do a page like this? I'm not in a hurry and willing to learn a lot but obviously also don't want to frustrate myself with an impossible task.

Just make a basic version first, one that lets you view, create, and edit the recipes and then go from there. It shouldn't be too difficult to get that working and from there you can expand add the more advanced features.

You can use PHP, MySQL for the back-end/database if you wanted to. I don't use PHP so I can't say much on that, I hear Laraval is decent so maybe look into that.

 

[Maiar_m]

Newbie checking in here. I want to learn coding and made a couple of attempts in the past, but none really came to fruition. I did some tutorials in the past, but because my learning was mainly theoretic (doing excercises on Codeacademy), I never got to the point where I really felt that I really got a good, basic understanding of web development. To change that, I thought it would be a good idea to set myself a real goal and do tutorials alongside the development that page.
My idea was to do a recipe page where the user has multiple ways to get recipes. The user can search for recipe names, search for specific attributes ("I need 3 recipes with meat, 2 vegetarian" or "1 thai style dish, 1 italian style") or can get recipes based on the stuff he has at home.

Stuff I want the page to have:

- Database with recipes
- Categories/tags for recipes
- Photos for the dishes
- Ability for the user to let the page generate recipes (e.g. users clicks on cheap and vegetables and the page will generate a list of cheap vegetarian dishes). Optionally for multiple dishes at once.
- "In the refrigerator option": site generates recipes based on a list of ingredients that the user inputs (e.g. "eggs, milk, flour" -> pancake recipe).
- Responsive design would be a plus
- Additional blog page


My question would be what skills would I need to develop a page with those features. HTML, CSS, Javascript plus X? Do I need something else for the database like php? Should I use some framework?
Is it remotely realistic for a beginner to do a page like this? I'm not in a hurry and willing to learn a lot but obviously also don't want to frustrate myself with an impossible task.

It's a good project but Ikuu is right, cut it down in smaller bits than you can code progressively.

PHP / MySQL is what I would have used for the whole backend engine as well, but I'm an interface developer myself so it's not really my forte. Regardless, using these (which are pretty commonly used online) would give you a real sense of "real-life" development.

 

[Thomasorus]

Hi guys!
I went back to school (I'm 28) this year after a few years of work as I wanted to change my work field. I have one year to learn everything I need and it started great, I'm pretty happy about all this. html/css is almost done/ok for me and we're starting PHP as well as webdesign. I activated my networks to ask people if they needed websites so I can learn while doing it and I may have a website to do for a photographer.

He will probably need to be able to maj his own website and galleries so I intend to work with a CMS he may use. What would you suggest using? I have a good knowledge of wordpress but I'm not sure if it's the best even if the galleries were updated with wordpress 4.

Your thoughs?

 

[PflargBlarg]

PostgreSQL is really the hotness now over MySQL. Have you seen dat performance?

I'm still baffled why people keep using MongoDB for applications where it's really not a good choice at all. People all using NoSQL implementations just because Mongo is 'cool' now. For most personal projects the chances that you should actually be using something like Mongo are pretty damn low.

Any way, that's my short rant.

 

[Endgegner]

Just make a basic version first, one that lets you view, create, and edit the recipes and then go from there. It shouldn't be too difficult to get that working and from there you can expand add the more advanced features.

You can use PHP, MySQL for the back-end/database if you wanted to. I don't use PHP so I can't say much on that, I hear Laraval is decent so maybe look into that.

It's a good project but Ikuu is right, cut it down in smaller bits than you can code progressively.

PHP / MySQL is what I would have used for the whole backend engine as well, but I'm an interface developer myself so it's not really my forte. Regardless, using these (which are pretty commonly used online) would give you a real sense of "real-life" development.

Thanks for the answers. Any tips on structuring a project like this?

 

[survivor]

PostgreSQL is really the hotness now over MySQL. Have you seen dat performance?

I'm still baffled why people keep using MongoDB for applications where it's really not a good choice at all. People all using NoSQL implementations just because Mongo is 'cool' now. For most personal projects the chances that you should actually be using something like Mongo are pretty damn low.

Any way, that's my short rant.

I'm using MongoDB for my final year project cause it was specified by my prof and man do I hate it. The freedom you get with your design like subdocuments is cool I suppose. But the lack of transactions is really frustrating me. I mean I'm sure I could find a way to organize my collections better, but all my problems would be solved by just using a regular SQL database.

 

[jesalr]

It's situational, right? NoSQL has its advantages, especially at scale (which I imagine few in this thread will hit), but also for my style of iterative (read: slapdash) design, it's nice to have the flexibility it offers.

 

[diaspora]

Does anyone have a recommended Linux distro for web dev? Nothing server related.

edit: not sure if it makes a difference, but I'll be dual-booting with Windows 8.1 on an SSD (500GB)

 

[Treechopper]

Does anyone have a recommended Linux distro for web dev? Nothing server related.

edit: not sure if it makes a difference, but I'll be dual-booting with Windows 8.1 on an SSD (500GB)

If you've never used Linux then just use Ubuntu 14.04. Outside that you're stepping into a war zone of distros and window managers.

 

[Freyjadour]

It's situational, right? NoSQL has its advantages, especially at scale (which I imagine few in this thread will hit), but also for my style of iterative (read: slapdash) design, it's nice to have the flexibility it offers.

I'm using MongoDB for my final year project cause it was specified by my prof and man do I hate it. The freedom you get with your design like subdocuments is cool I suppose. But the lack of transactions is really frustrating me. I mean I'm sure I could find a way to organize my collections better, but all my problems would be solved by just using a regular SQL database.

PostgreSQL is really the hotness now over MySQL. Have you seen dat performance?

I'm still baffled why people keep using MongoDB for applications where it's really not a good choice at all. People all using NoSQL implementations just because Mongo is 'cool' now. For most personal projects the chances that you should actually be using something like Mongo are pretty damn low.

Any way, that's my short rant.

Why You Should Never Use MongoDB

I've lived this article several times from inherited codebases.

If you have to have the hottest new thing, at least do Postgres.

 

[PetriP-TNT]

Why You Should Never Use MongoDB

I've lived this article several times from inherited codebases.

If you have to have the hottest new thing, at least do Postgres.

Tl;dr: Don't use the wrong for the right job

While I am at it, I'll also tl;dr the comments section:

THANKS for this, I have been creating databases for 69 years now and *insert system of your choice* has never let me down so far unlike MongoDB in your tv show app

 

[Syphon Filter]

I have an interview this Thursday and there will be an assessment test. I got a question for those that been through this before. Anyone have any idea what type of questions are typically asked? Also any website i can read and study for these possible questions?

 

[Somnid]

Tl;dr: Don't use the wrong for the right job

While I am at it, I'll also tl;dr the comments section:

THANKS for this, I have been creating databases for 69 years now and *insert system of your choice* has never let me down so far unlike MongoDB in your tv show app

This. You have to understand your data model. MongoDB doesn't do relation data, that's not a weakness, that's the point. Trying to do something like a CMS in SQL becomes an uninterpretable mess of denormalization when something like MongoDB could cleanly handle it and fast because it's schema-less. You have plenty of rope to hang yourself though. It's a matter of people getting overexposed to SQL and falling back on habits that don't work elsewhere. The same thing happens when you take a C++ guru and drop them into javascript, their whole world is turned upside down, best-practice is worst practice and they get very frustrated. You need to understand the technology you work with.

 

[Buckethead]

I have an interview this Thursday and there will be an assessment test. I got a question for those that been through this before. Anyone have any idea what type of questions are typically asked? Also any website i can read and study for these possible questions?

Depends. I got asked a bunch of questions that weren't even front-end dev related for an interview awhile back.

You'll probably know it or you won't. As long as you show competence in the position you're applying for and show a desire/ability to learn quickly you should be fine.

 

[Freyjadour]

Tl;dr: Don't use the wrong for the right job

While I am at it, I'll also tl;dr the comments section:

THANKS for this, I have been creating databases for 69 years now and *insert system of your choice* has never let me down so far unlike MongoDB in your tv show app

The problem becomes: what IS the right job for MongoDB?

The answer is basically: logs and unstructured log like data. (if you 100% certain that there never will be any structure to the log like data, and as we all are well aware requirements never change).

This. You have to understand your data model. MongoDB doesn't do relation data, that's not a weakness, that's the point. Trying to do something like a CMS in SQL becomes an uninterpretable mess of denormalization when something like MongoDB could cleanly handle it and fast because it's schema-less. You have plenty of rope to hang yourself though. It's a matter of people getting overexposed to SQL and falling back on habits that don't work elsewhere. The same thing happens when you take a C++ guru and drop them into javascript, their whole world is turned upside down, best-practice is worst practice and they get very frustrated. You need to understand the technology you work with.

There's no way that a CMS in Mongo doesn't become a nightmare.

That's the problem with Mongo, everyone touts "schemaless" as a feature, when 99% of the time "schemaless" means "I don't have to think about the structure of my database" and after the novelty/gimmick wears off you end up with an enormous, unmaintable mess.

So, the tl;dr is less "don't use the wrong tool for the job" and more "Mongo's legitimate usage cases are so few and far between that you probably shouldn't be using it".

 

[Somnid]

That's the problem with Mongo, everyone touts "schemaless" as a feature, when 99% of the time "schemaless" means "I don't have to think about the structure of my database" and after the novelty/gimmick wears off you end up with an enormous, unmaintable mess.

So, the tl;dr is less "don't use the wrong tool for the job" and more "Mongo's legitimate usage cases are so few and far between that you probably shouldn't be using it".

Not really. I work on several SQL databases that have become absolute messes because you can't really change the schema once you've collected a bunch of data. So you get lots of satellite tables, stuffing data into new columns and having to update what can be hundreds of stored procedures just because you wanted to make some small change. Things like database versioning are very difficult. Anyone who tells you SQL is maintainable is a liar, it's designed to make it hard to change, that's almost the point. The nice part about Mongo is that it actually forces you to take logic out of the db and rely on small, flat datasets, which is better for long-term maintainability and will require little to no mapping when turned into your models. It's exceptionally better when you need tree-like structures, which are very common especially in places like CMSs.

 

[Freyjadour]

Not really. I work on several SQL databases that have become absolute messes because you can't really change the schema once you've collected a bunch of data. So you get lots of satellite tables, stuffing data into new columns and having to update what can be hundreds of stored procedures just because you wanted to make some small change. Things like database versioning are very difficult. Anyone who tells you SQL is maintainable is a liar, it's designed to make it hard to change, that's almost the point. The nice part about Mongo is that it actually forces you to take logic out of the db and rely on small, flat datasets, which is better for long-term maintainability and will require little to no mapping when turned into your models. It's exceptionally better when you need tree-like structures, which are very common especially in places like CMSs.

It's virtually impossible that what you view as tree-like structures aren't actually (or very capable of being) graph-like structures. In the event that you do actually have ironbound tree-like structures, the data is necessarily trivial enough that any data store should do. If your defense of the tree structure is "no one would ever want to be able to associate X with Y, or god forbid: Y with X" then that's exactly the kind of oversight that makes choosing NoSQL a poor decision in the first place.

In essence, most non-trivial data is relational. "forcing you to take the logic out of the db" means throwing out decades of optimizations to write your own relational logic coupled with the inefficient nature of making n calls to a database to implement n joins that would be necessary in any sufficiently complex solution. Especially as n grows larger and larger due to the way we've broken down our data into many "nice, small datasets". Nevermind the migration hell that comes with all of this.

 

[PetriP-TNT]

I don't even use native JavaScript variables, I just save all my variables to a MSSQL DB and use SELECT statements when I need to reference one

 

[Blablurn]

I have a simple question. I started creating a website with html and css. but im a noob.

so i would like to know.

what do i need to do to adjust my website to the browser size?

see here.

it looks okay on full screen mode:

but once i change my browser size it looks like crap

 

[D4Danger]

It's hard to say without looking at the site but how are you positioning things?

if you're using absolute positioning or something it's going to ignore the size of your browser and enforce those styles

are you trying to center the site?

 

[Somnid]

It's virtually impossible that what you view as tree-like structures aren't actually (or very capable of being) graph-like structures. In the event that you do actually have ironbound tree-like structures, the data is necessarily trivial enough that any data store should do. If your defense of the tree structure is "no one would ever want to be able to associate X with Y, or god forbid: Y with X" then that's exactly the kind of oversight that makes choosing NoSQL a poor decision in the first place.

In essence, most non-trivial data is relational. "forcing you to take the logic out of the db" means throwing out decades of optimizations to write your own relational logic coupled with the inefficient nature of making n calls to a database to implement n joins that would be necessary in any sufficiently complex solution. Especially as n grows larger and larger due to the way we've broken down our data into many "nice, small datasets". Nevermind the migration hell that comes with all of this.

Let's just abstract the data store here, you can use whatever you want. How do you get your data? How is data modeled in the application? I don't think you would choose a huge graph to store in memory, I think you would take the pieces you need and pipe them as lists of models from an API (CouchDB will actually build the REST endpoints that do this). Do you write your own custom data layer or use an ORM? Do users directly run complex queries on your data?

 

[Blablurn]

It's hard to say without looking at the site but how are you positioning things?

if you're using absolute positioning or something it's going to ignore the size of your browser and enforce those styles

are you trying to center the site?

yep, i was using absolute positioning!

EDIT:

I think I found the solution! Thanks tho

 

[SoldnerKei]

yep, i was using absolute positioning!

EDIT:

I think I found the solution! Thanks tho

since you're starting with css, keep your widths with % values, it will save you time whenever you want to see your site on a mobile device, taking that in mind, you could also just download a template from boostrap or another library if you don't want to lose much time with the main structure of your site, you can customize whatever you want on it later

 

[toohectic]

I know it is not a popular option, but what's the preferred WYSIWYG-style editor these days? My 65yo mother currently maintains a site dedicated to her class reunions and is still using Apple's iWeb for her design. She'd like to expand her designs (beyond iWeb's limited capabilities), but has no interest in learning any coding whatsoever. Any suggestions for standalone design software capable of WYSIWYG functionality?

 

[Somnid]

I know it is not a popular option, but what's the preferred WYSIWYG-style editor these days? My 65yo mother currently maintains a site dedicated to her class reunions and is still using Apple's iWeb for her design. She'd like to expand her designs (beyond iWeb's limited capabilities), but has no interest in learning any coding whatsoever. Any suggestions for standalone design software capable of WYSIWYG functionality?

So the primary answer is there aren't and it's a dying breed of apps. Most are old and absolutely unsuitable for modern web, especially mobile devices. You could try something like http://www.google.com/webdesigner/ which is in beta but don't expect much out of these tools.

edit: Here's another with a small bit of buzz: http://macaw.co/.




Since this thread was bumped, for those interested in Web RTC the codec battle is over. Browsers must support H264 and VP8, native apps can use either but are allowed to pick only one if it is made royalty-free. https://plus.google.com/113817074606039822053/posts/94PRnYqoGfG

 

[Blizzard]

So the primary answer is there aren't and it's a dying breed of apps. Most are old and absolutely unsuitable for modern web, especially mobile devices. You could try something like http://www.google.com/webdesigner/ which is in beta but don't expect much out of these tools.

I'm also one of the people needing to get a business website up and running, and I haven't been much involved with websites since the days of editing HTML in text editors.

...it's kind of funny to see that in 2014, the preferred approach still appears to be editing source in a text editor of some sort, at least judging from the contents of the OP?

I'm also interested if there are any decent modern reference websites for general practices on simple sites, if sites like Code Academy are poor as people are discussing above.

 

[Ninja_Hawk]

If anyone knows a lot about sql development could you please PM me, as I have some important questions. I'd be willing to toss $10 and a lot of appreciation for the help. Thanks!

 

[Buckethead]

yep, i was using absolute positioning!

EDIT:

I think I found the solution! Thanks tho

Skip a line after the curly bracket and don't use internal styles biiiiiiitch

 

[deim0s]

So the primary answer is there aren't and it's a dying breed of apps. Most are old and absolutely unsuitable for modern web, especially mobile devices. You could try something like http://www.google.com/webdesigner/ which is in beta but don't expect much out of these tools.

Google Web Designer is not for designing webpages, it's mostly for ad/banner creation and animation using HTML5/CSS3.

@toohectic
Dreamweaver is still around. But I don't think it'll be great for use by your mother and like Somnid said WYSIWYG editors are going away. She'd be better off sticking with iWeb at least it is familiar.

Edit: i searched: http://www.coffeecup.com/designer/ Heheh, the Coffeecup guys are still alive and kicking.