Starting out Making Sites

Hi everyone,

After self-studying web development online (mainly on Codecademy) I'm at the stage of setting out on making some basic web pages of my own.

I'd just like to ask what people think is most useful and best practice with using templates. Would you use boilerplate or barebones template or would I be better off just starting out with blank html and css pages etc.

Thanks

 

That depends. Templates usually goes with some sort of framework (since no frameworks can use other frameworks' templates) - so a bit about what you're planning to actually use would probably help.

If you're not planning on using a framework, but build sites from the ground up, I suggest having some basic ideas about how to organise content - since templates usually muck up more than they help. Writing a dynamic page will likely involve functions to output content anyway, and the template needs to be able to handle this.

Personally, I don't mind mixing HTML and PHP (PHP stands for PHP: Hypertext Processor) as I feel that makes what I'm trying to do easier. Going along with MVC-construction, single file classes etc. etc. might be good if you have a VERY huge project, thousands of files, but if you're creating smaller sites, don't bother - it adds complications, loading time and bloat.

As for a basic HTML-page, it takes about 5 minutes to write, so I don't really see the big benefits in keeping templates - what I do keep, however, is functions and classes for reuse across projects. Finding the right way to process and output data, how to construct databases and queries most efficiently, those are things that help when developing from scratch. The rest is gimmicky window-dressing, and should mostly come last, after you figure out how you want the site to work.

 

Ok, thanks for the advice. I haven't been doing this for very long so to start with, the pages I make will be small and simple. I have given myself the task of making a couple of themes to incorporate with WordPress as my first proper development project.

Yeah I think I will always want to make things as fast, efficient and clean as possible so sounds like I should avoid using frameworks then. I just want simple pages, with great design, that function correctly ie are responsive with fast load times.

 

If that's your goal, you're already hitting the top-5 % mark in web development - most developers pay no heed to accessibility, well-formed and good code, and usually puts design over content every time. Let's hope you can be part of the coders trying to change that. When it comes to Wordpress-themes, it's hard to do just that - Wordpress adds a LOT of bloat to a page, so I suggest being very particular about what you put into your theme (in the files) and preferably provide some sort of admin-interface where people can turn on specific features if you want to provide them, but don't deem them necessary. Also, take note that some of the built-in functions of Wordpress are really badly coded, and you might need to rewrite some of them with your own function (one that springs to mind is the image-caption shortcode-mess).

 

It depends on what you're building. If you're building to practise, I can only recommend building your own entirely from scratch as this will help you learn even more.

If you're building to sell, you might want to use a template to quicken things up.

 

Starting out you need two tools; a browser and a flat text editor. Until you can sit in front of a blank editor page and write a layout from scratch, then aplyy multiple styles for alternate presentation you are not ready to use crapware like Wordpress. Just how do you think you are going to find the skills necessary to evaluate quality, if you still have not learned to write from scratch.

forget the junk until you have actually developed and deployed something that is 100% your own code and your own effort.

 

I would honestly stick to WordPress as a CMS. It's very easy to use and perfect for people new to web development. The support community for it is huge and there are a ton of useful free themes and plugins available. Once you have an understanding of PHP and SQL you can do anything with this platform.

WP is pretty secure, and it's been under constant development for the last 12 years, but I recommend adding this snippet to your theme's functions.php file for any installation:

remove_action('wp_head', 'wp_generator');
​

This will remove the WP version from being seen in the source code, and make it more difficult for people to see which version you are using.

Just keep building sites and trying new things it's the best way to learn. Best of luck.