Hats off to you for putting up with such brilliancy and simplicity in explanation
A friendly web development tutorial for complete beginners (2017)
41–50 of 57 posts
Re: A friendly web development tutorial for complete beginners (2017)
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you've explained rather succintly while many new web developers find the whole hosting thing a confusing mess. The assumption (especially on tech forums like this one) seems to be that everyone should learn server management to get a website off the ground. But that's a bit of a jump to make. Learning how to install a web server or edit a server's configuration isn't always the most straight forward thing in…
I would disagree - configuring nginx/apache/whatever to just display a static site is really easy - and honestly - it dosen't take much time. Honestly, i had more trouble helping my friend with 'simple shared hosting' CMS to setup his webpage correctly, than with setting up nginx on ubuntu for the first time.
You are missing the point. We are talking about absolute beginners.
They finished their basic markup, now they want to put it online, and you came up with Nginx and Apache? That is called out of touch.
Step back. Of course, it is easy, of course, there are bazillions of tutorials, but these people do not know any of that.
I'm a sysadmin, but once, I had no clue about anything and people commenting like you weren't helpful at all.
Re: A friendly web development tutorial for complete beginners (2017)
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
I laughed at this, so I hope it was intended to be sarcastic. I know how to do those things, but even so, the thought of doing all that just to get a little side project online gives me a sense of dread. It’s not what I would call fun.
I have trouble setting up servers and database instances while being a full-time professional developer. At work the DevOps people handle that, but still I should be able to do it on my own. I hate to imagine how hard it is for someone who has never typed 'cd' or 'ls' in a terminal.
Setting up hosting is one of those tasks with way more possible downsides than upsides. The best case scenario is "it works as expected." And there a ton of ways to fall short of that.
File and directory permissions screw people up all the time. If you set them wrong, you can create security holes, keep your site from being served, break SSH logins, break TLS, break git, etc. And online forums are full of bad advice a la "I just set 777 on the directory and all the errors went away!"
Re: A friendly web development tutorial for complete beginners (2017)
#44This is a very well done and pretty comprehensive tutorial. However, there are plenty of pretty good basic web development tutorials out there, and few, if any of them address what I think is crucial. Once you have all your HTML and CSS and JavaScript all ready to go, how do you actually got about putting that webpage online the right way for the modern internet, including basic security best practices. As the websit…
I mean, if you're just doing it to learn, you can use a hosted tutorial like mines here: https://codeorc.com/learn-web-development-by-programming-a-r...
It takes you step by step. Every step of the way, it can automatically sync the example code to a working running example, so you don't have to worry about setup and can just worry about learning.
Re: A friendly web development tutorial for complete beginners (2017)
#452017 Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13634363
Re: A friendly web development tutorial for complete beginners (2017)
#46I'd take out the floats section and replace it with grid; floats are completely obselete
Re: A friendly web development tutorial for complete beginners (2017)
#47I'd take out the floats section and replace it with grid; floats are completely obselete
True, but as soon as you get a job involving any legacy HTML, you'll have to wrestle with them.
Re: A friendly web development tutorial for complete beginners (2017)
#48This is a very well done and pretty comprehensive tutorial. However, there are plenty of pretty good basic web development tutorials out there, and few, if any of them address what I think is crucial. Once you have all your HTML and CSS and JavaScript all ready to go, how do you actually got about putting that webpage online the right way for the modern internet, including basic security best practices. As the websit…
I'd personally love a recommendation for a set of basic security guidelines for static websites. Less interested in OWASP stuff and more as you said, hosting-specific issues. This would also be a lot to cover, from using static-site deployment tools like github pages or netlify, to throwing it up on an S3 bucket and routing using Route53, to even for whatever reason configuring a VPS with nginx or apache to serve it out of a directory.
This could further be extended to static sites that want do some authentication, covering which providers are best for that, basic security for using solutions like firebase for hosting and database, etc.
Re: A friendly web development tutorial for complete beginners (2017)
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would disagree - configuring nginx/apache/whatever to just display a static site is really easy - and honestly - it dosen't take much time. Honestly, i had more trouble helping my friend with 'simple shared hosting' CMS to setup his webpage correctly, than with setting up nginx on ubuntu for the first time.
You are missing the point. We are talking about absolute beginners. They finished their basic markup, now they want to put it online, and you came up with Nginx and Apache? That is called out of touch. Step back. Of course, it is easy, of course, there are bazillions of tutorials, but these people do not know any of that. I'm a sysadmin, but once, I had no clue about anything and people commenting like you weren't he…
If you're an absolute beginner - you don't need things to be online, just stick with local.
What do you need it to be online for?
If we want people who know web programming, basic server management on a 5$/mo VPS is something they'll need to learn, sorry.
If people want to dabble, stick with local.
If people want a business result with minimal friction - stick to instagram, facebook, medium, shopify etc. Existing platforms cover 99% of people's needs when they think they want a website. They're either trying to sell or promote something - existing platforms cover those needs very well - a website is something that fewer and fewer people will ever need to have as time goes on. This begs the question - what are people learning html/css for? Tell them the truth - we'll need fewer 'coders' in the next 30 years, either go get a real computer science degree or look for a different line of work. Just my opinion of course :)
Re: A friendly web development tutorial for complete beginners (2017)
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are missing the point. We are talking about absolute beginners. They finished their basic markup, now they want to put it online, and you came up with Nginx and Apache? That is called out of touch. Step back. Of course, it is easy, of course, there are bazillions of tutorials, but these people do not know any of that. I'm a sysadmin, but once, I had no clue about anything and people commenting like you weren't he…
If you're an absolute beginner - you don't need things to be online, just stick with local. What do you need it to be online for? If we want people who know web programming, basic server management on a 5$/mo VPS is something they'll need to learn, sorry. If people want to dabble, stick with local. If people want a business result with minimal friction - stick to instagram, facebook, medium, shopify etc. Existing pla…
I need it to be online because that was the underlying motivation for me starting the tutorial in the first place, and if you haven't shown me that, your tutorial failed to address the actual purpose.
Growing up, there was nothing worse than the tutorials or classes that didn't actually do the thing you wanted: "learn to program a game! *will not actually be able to have a game anyone can play at end of tutorial".
And since computer science isn't about the web, and university is a pretty bad place to learn programming, respectfully your advice is the opposite of mine.