Boggled designer needing "development" skills

Hi,

I've been a recreational graphic designer for over 10 years. I greatly enjoy graphics programs like Photoshop and Flash, but I've always completely shied away from programming.

After switching through several college majors, I've now decided to finish my college education with a degree in graphic design. However, my college graduate friend, who's establishing himself as a web designer/developer, told me that at his workplace, most of the designers were fired, and in comparison most of the developers were kept.

Thus, I've decided to overcome my fear and try to learn some "development" (I never even knew exactly what web "development" was until I spent some time on these forums and on wikipedia these past few days).

From "A Highly Opinionated Review of Programming Languages for the Novice," I've concluded that, in order for me to become a successful web developer, I'd need to learn HTML, javascript, PHP, XML, perl/python, and java. And since I want to become a professional web designer, I'd need to learn some development frameworks as well? (I don't even know what these are) And there's also the matter of mastering actionscripting to bring my Flash abilities to a new level.

I'm just REALLY intimidated by all of this. Where did most of you learn this stuff? From reading books and websites? From practicing? Did any of you learn this stuff in college, e.g. computer science programs? I've never been great at math.

I'm not even sure where to start and which languages are truly needed in order to become a valuable web designer/developer. I learned HTML a long, long time ago, so next for me would be to master javascript and PHP, I suppose?

Would love any advice or direction from some of you guys. I know this request is very broad, but I think likewise I'm just looking for some broad advice from those who've been boggled and scared like me at some point.

Any web designers/developers out there with some insight?

- phayzed

One instance doesn't indicate a trend. In general I'd say that developers are most likely to be outsourced than designers. Development is more of a mechanical skill whereas design is more of a creative skill. In general I'd also say that it is better to specialize than try to do it all.


That list is probably a little extensive. A web developer needs the following:
1. A client side markup language (HTML)
2. A client side scripting language (Javascript)
3. A server side scripting language (PHP or ASP or Java or C or Perl or Python, etc.)
4. Knowledge of a database system and SQL (MySql or MSSQL or PostgreSQL)

The majority of web developers do not use Java. PHP or ASP are the predominate languages used for modern web development, with PHP probably being the more used of the two.

The type of database system you use depends on which language you go with. PHP applications tend to use MySql or PostgreSQL, while ASP applications tend to lean more towards MSSQL. SQL is similar between all the systems although there are some minor differences.

Especially at first I wouldn't try to learn PHP, Perl, Python and Java. Trying to learn them all is just going to confuse you, because they are all pretty similar. Once you know one you can branch into the others if you want, but generally it isn't needed. Like I said, specialization is a good thing. It increases your value to some employers while decreasing your value to the others.

Don't bother trying to learn XML. If you know HTML you can figure out all you need to know about XML in about 10 minutes.

On the other hand, I know a few people (managerial types) who think that design is easy and the developers can take care of it. Many can, but I, for one, am not so good at coming up with designs. Give me one and I can make it, but if I have to create the design myself...

But the thing is, once the design is done... then what? It's not like sites are constantly changing their appearance. So I would suggest that you focus on designing - know your stuff inside and out - then put some effort into learning the common stuff: HTML and CSS, then some JavaScript. Whatever server-side language you use (PHP, .NET, Python...) you'll still be using the same client-side stuff.

Basically, be what you want to be. But keep in mind that lots of other people want to be the same thing too so get yourself some advantage over them.

I'll only briefly note that it's not a wise idea to overreact to your friend's story. But to answer your questions.

No. Don't assemble a number of technologies and set out to learn them. Focus on what you want to accomplish in the short term and learn the appropriate technology for that. Sometimes, you will have choices, in which case you will have to make a decision. Learning a technology doesn't make a bit of difference if you can't apply it in some context.

in development, there are a lot of similar challenges and work that needs to be done. You need to deal with issues like session handling, authentication, caching, and things like that. At least on non-trivial sites, you want them done properly. Now, there's two approaches. You can attempt them yourself. Or you can use prewritten code. You don't want to them on your own. Unless you have some exceptional situation (oh for example, your website is one of the top 20 websites on the internet), prewritten code is perfectly usable. Frameworks refer to prewritten code that has been designed so that you can just build on top of it.

The description is rather vague, but it starts to make sense when you program and have to start doing all the work. Suddenly it becomes apparent what kind of decisions and time you have to spend in doing what things, and you understand what you could really use to make your life easier.

Both. I have read. A lot. Blogs and articles by other professionals. Books on a variety of topics. And from just doing. Building small tiny useless sites. Building bigger sites. Just making things and exploring.

I'll bisect web design and development and deal with each separately.

I consider web design to mean specifically creating the design of the site, which is what the page looks like. There's two technologies involved in design. HTML and CSS. As a designer, you need competency with both, without question. When it comes to webpage interactivity, these two technologies will not suffice. Interactivity comes in one of two ways. The first is Javascript, a language that web browsers implement and can control the DOM. Translation, aside from being a programming language in its own, browser implementation allow you to control elements of a page, which you see as being interactive. The other way is to use some proprietary object on a webpage. The two big ones that people can expect nowadays are Flash and Java applets. I consider mastery in any of them to be outside the base requirement of being a web designer.

However, you should be familiar with dealing with any of the three. Web designers should be expected to be familiar with Javascript. They should recognize what it looks like and how it is placed in their HTML markup. The same goes with Java applets and Flash. But it's definitely a bonus if you have good competence with one or more of them. The most valuable is Javascript, as quite often you'll need to deliver basic interactivity in your webpage. But I consider strong Javascript competence to be Javascript development. The same for Flash. Definitely for Java.

Web development is an open field. Design is simpler because there's a limited set of technologies in use. There's nothing to dictate what happens on the server end. Development there really is development. It's programming work. PHP is a good example. Python is another. Java and C# are two more. And Ruby. But you can't say for sure. So if you want to wade into this mess, let us know, but I hope you're comfortable with the idea of programming.

Thank you for the amazing responses. They've given me tremendous guidance.

I really look forward to learning a lot about programming, to be honest!

Thanks again, all.