Learning web development, best options

[dthom]

Hello

Great forum, thank you.

My background is in 'traditional' media production (audio, video, photo) and in 2002 I trained in basic web design, following this I worked as a web designer working with Flash/AS for 4 years, from 2007, again, working with APIS, some basic PHP/MySQL, Jquery - thankfully, the OS community allowed me to make web applications for myself and for freelance clients. Recently, I've also been working in web marketing. I am fully competent in common web design methods, but only to a intermediate level of development, and expert in web design, I want to shift this balance.

Now, I want to formalise my experience with learning various web programming/coding languages, so that I can rely less on OS; but only for increasing my skills set.

My question is - what should I focus on learning? I have listed:

PHP 5 (+MySQL...)
CSS 3
HTML 5
JQuery
Ajax
API (JSON, SOAP)
Actionscript 3
Objective-C

In light of possible future web trends, would a course of study of all(sic) the above (over a period of time!) be a good investment of time, or perhaps should I focus entirely on C++, ASP.NET, JAVA, for example.

I am passionate about web dev, so following either of the above would be interesting to me.

I don't underestimate the time it takes to learn anything new.

I'd be grateful if anyone would share their views on how I should proceed to improve my web development skillset.

[bullant]

My question is - what should I focus on learning? I have listed:

PHP 5 (+MySQL...)
CSS 3
HTML 5
JQuery
Ajax
API (JSON, SOAP)
Actionscript 3
Objective-C



The order I was taught and I can recommend it as well was

1) HTML

2) CSS

3) Javascript

4) PHP with database connectivity.

1-2 are a "must have" if you want to build static web sites.

3 allows you to build in some client side interactivity.

4 allows you to build full blown database driven dynamic websites such e-commerce websites with a CMS.

An interest and skills in digital graphic design would help a lot as well.

If you are able to attend a reputable formal course in web development, that would be my first recommendation. Otherwise good, reasonably up to date text books coupled with online tutorials and making "friends" with reputable people in forums would be my Plan B.

[VIPStephan]

And since you mentioned CSS3 and HTML 5: Note that these are only working drafts yet and not official standards which means that only parts of them work in only the latest cutting edge applications. My personal feeling is that it’s often the “designers” and “new media marketing blahblah” guys that just focus on the newest trends and technology and neglect the fact that the majority of internet users are John and Jane Doe with a two year old browser (at least).

That said: Don’t just learn HTML 5 and CSS 3 and think that’s the stuff you can and should use (and then wonder why it’s not working here and there and desperately look for workarounds). The first thing to learn is what works in most applications which is HTML 4/XHTML 1 and CSS 2.1. If you know how to get your ideas working with this state of technology you’re ready to extend that with latest developments for those devices that support it.

[webdesigners]

since you already worked as web designer, recommendation could be to enhance what you already know. If you want to become and expert and want to attract more jobs highly recommend industry certifications. They can help you long way. hope this helps