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[Evil_genius82]

Hi guys,
Im working my way up in webdesign and just needed a guide to what i should learn next. Im quite fine at xhtml, css and photoshop. Im just not to sure if i should go for flash, javascript, or php and what would be the necessity for a web design company.

Any help would be great.

Ryan

Go for Javascript, Jquery, AJAX and php. Would help you to develop dynamic contents if you know html and css well.

[macneato]

Really depends where you want to go with your career.

If you plan on going into

front-end development:
HTML and CSS, JS,Jquery and AJAX

Backend development:
PHP, AJAX, XML, JSON and REST/SOAP

Interactive development:
AS 3.0 and/or Flex, OOP principles and site architecture, API integration techniques like AMFPHP/JSON and web services, Interactive technologies (Papervision, Away3D, AIR, OpenFrameworks, Processing, OpenGL, Canvas), MVC programming paradigm and probably some frameworks like PureMVC/RobotLegs/Mate

For all of the above, it would be benifical if you get Subversion/CVS experiece, as all or most digital agencies work with it.

Also got to remember, Agencies look at what skills you have, experience ect. So even if you can code "a lil" of everything, they wouldnt be as impressed as someone that as been coding for example front-end langauges for 3-5 years within an agency environment.

But really, would you want to be a jack of all trades, yet master of none?

Hope this is helpful

[craiggles]

Well the first stage in web design and development is to gain a pretty good understanding of (X)HTML and CSS, in irc.freenode.net#html this is generally phrased as "being able to html and css in your sleep."

After you have done this I would then recommend moving to server side, whether you use a language such as PHP or a framework such as Ruby on Rails. Why server side before client side you may ask? Client side should never be required for a webpage, rather just for extra functionality, as the page should be functional without client side so that you can still use server side features such as database interaction. Though I'd recommend you learning a server side language before a framework because a framework just makes it easier and quicker to deploy projects. You still have to know what's going on under the hood.

Get a solid understanding of your server side language/framework and then should you move on to client side. Many advise the JQuery framework and it's really good indeed, but my advice is to learn a bit of pure JavaScript, again like with server side this allows you to know what's really going on under the hood, and this helps significantly.

I also agree with macneato, web development involves a wide range of technologies, sure you can stick with the bare minimum HTML, CSS, JavaScript and your server side but there's also lots of other technologies you could learn XML, XSLT, XSL-FO, AJAX, SVG... the list goes on. So chances are that you won't be a jack of all trades.. unless you're awesome!

If you've got any more questions feel free to post here or drop me a personal message.

[Evil_genius82]

Go for Javascript, Jquery, AJAX and php. Would help you to develop dynamic contents if you know html and css well.

Thanks for your guidance friend. Will give them a try!

[Evil_genius82]

Guys, thanks for the large input. Ill give this all a good think and start going up the ladder. You have all cleared alot of questions for me.

Regards,
Ryan