Hi guys, I'm pretty new to web design, I have built a few sites in the past, but these days my job is mainly SEO/SMM and making small amendments to sites, so I rarely get the opportunity to build a site from scratch. I'm interested in moving more toward the design and building side of things, and hopefully pursuing a career in it in the future. One thing that's leaving me a bit stumped though is the process of building a site locally on my computer before uploading - how are people doing this these days? I'm working primarily in WordPress, But I'd like the flexibility of being able to build sites with other CMS's and sites without a CMS too. At the minute, I have an XAMPP setup, but I've read about things like Bitnami, WAMP, Vagrant and several others, which has left me feeling like the way I'm doing things might be a bit outdated now, but at the same time, I'm strugling to find any truly useful info on what I should be doing. Also, the subject of IDEs is leaving me a little lost - at the minute, I just use Sublime Text 2. Should I be using an IDE instead, or is that more for back end development stuff? From what I've read, being able to set up "projects" in an IDE seems amazingly useful - but I think I can do this in Sublime Text 2, so what would the advantage of using an IDE be? Sorry for the elementary questions, Ijust feel like in the couple of years since I last built a real site, technologies have come on a lot, and I should try and catch up a bit before I go any further! Thanks in advance guys!
1) There's nothing wrong with XAMPP as a testing environment. If you need more than Apache, PHP and mySQL when developing for Apache, PHP and mySQL (which I'm assuming you're doing) then it's likely you are doing something wrong. 2) Sublime is far better than any stupid malfing IDE (though I'm not a fan as it's accessibility trash and has too many things that just get in my way) -- IDE's tend to try and do **** you should be testing on REAL servers with REAL browsers, or try shoving their (typically broken) way of doing things down your throat. The whole "projects" nonsense being a perfect example of that. You need that nonsense, well... you're probably doing something WRONG. My own setup I run XAMPP locally, keeping each project in it's own directory in /XAMPP/htdocs. For code editing I use Flo's Notepad 2, because it lets me turn off all the goofy crap that just gets in the way of my writing code -- like the illegible acid trip known as colour syntax highlighting, the goof assed code completion that I usually waste more time correcting than it could ever save me, idiotic nonsense like autocomplete that by the time I figure out what it's trying to 'help' me do, I could have just typed the blasted thing, rubbish like tabbed editing that would prevent me from having multiple windows side-by-side across my three display system, etc, etc, etc... ... For testing and debugging, that's what the actual browsers, their error consoles, tools like dragonfly and firebug (not that I usually need either on my own code), viewing the output source, and Apache/PHP/SQL error logs are for. Which combined with using actually semantic markup in a recommendation doctype, building using separation of presentation from content, progressively enhancing the markup -- results in a cleaner workflow and far faster development with a far, FAR better result than most of the people who sleaze out a PSD before they even think content; Most 'designers' not knowing enough about HTML, CSS, emissive colourspace or accessibility to be designing jack ****! Take a look at the average turdpress template, or the endless crap on nube predator websites like Themeforest or TemplateMonster to see that level of asshattery in action.
Most of the IDE's for web development I've seen waste space that could be used to show code on stupid toolbars, sidebars and other nonsense -- they shove their stupid malfing project management asshattery down your throat, restrict you to a single window tabbed interface (one of the reasons I don't like a lot of flat editors either), don't tend to like you trying to turn off the goofy aids that just get in the blasted way of actually *SHOCK* writing code, and that's before we talk idiocies like built in code testing when if you cannot set up a real testing environment and test in that, you probably have no business developing for the web in the first place! It's the same idiocy as WYSIWYGS or idiotic nube predation garbage like Dreamweaver -- I've rarely seen a website built with them that wasn't total and complete garbage code and inaccessible disasters. More so when you get the re-re's 'developing' sites in things like Visual Studio with the ASP crap... What that typcially vomits up for markup is an atrocity worthy of convening a war crimes tribunal.
As to the OPs question, I myself don't use any of those CMS packages (Sugar, etc), Blog packages (Wordpress, etc). I try to keep the use of pre-built packages to a minimum. Some of it is a pride in my geek side, sometimes the customer can't or won't use off-the-shelf packages, but wants somethings custom-built to the business. In my humble opinion, with which you can disagree or not, using such packages makes for a lazy and/or non-knowledgeable developer. My young son can squirt out a Wordpress site in minutes. And it will look like just about every other wordpress site out there. And have the same attack surfaces. Without heavy modification, you just be another "developer" slinging modified blogs. Why not spend the time and learn the code behind the site, rather than relying on the site to do it for you ? What happens when something breaks ? Are you going to hire someone to fix it for you ? Even it is simple problem, you leave yourself open to getting ripped off, if you don't have a solid understanding of the code. As for IDEs, yep, I hate them. Visual Studio provides unnecessary bloat and illegibility. Dreamweaver confuses things as far as readability go, as well. Personally, I use NotePad++ for all my code needs, including CSS. I've used Sublime Text 2 (and still have it installed), but I just keep gravitating back to NotePad++. Nothing against Sublime, it's a great little package. Anyone can bust out a site in Microsoft Publisher. But lets say your on vacation in some tropical paradise, and your customer says, "Hey, I need you to change the copyright statement on the bottom of the page, as well as in the meta tags. Bonus if you get it done today". Now, I don't know about you, but I don't have MS Publisher loaded on either my iPad or my phone, and no laptop on vacation (cardinal rule). It's 5000x easier to edit an html file built in NotePad (or Sublime), than it would be to edit the same file generated on by an IDE, especially on a mobile device. I would argue a bit with that statement. Drop the Visual Studio IDE, and you won't get the atrocities you speak of. Bit twiddle directly in a text editor, and you will get tight ASP code, and clean HTML to the browser. It's up to how much time the coder has, or the experience of the coder, as to what quality of work gets created. With the n00b or lazy coder, you'll end up with a steaming pile of droppings on the lawn of technology. With the professional who takes pride in his finished product, you'll get a shiny, clean, and correct product.
Hence the 'combine' part of that statement -- though you're right, I should have been clearer on that. It's the same relationship as WYSIWYG's to HTML... or most any tool that allegedly makes things "simpler"; they generally have the opposite effect. See "Frameworks" be they JS, HTML, CSS or even PHP. Crutches for lazy coders that usually result in garbage sites.