How long would it take to become a highly skilled web designer and developer?

I'm a very fast learner and can catch on quickly. I pick things up far more quickly than the average person, especially when it comes to skill-based tasks like this. I'm good with computers but on a programming level, I don't have much experience, although I have worked with frontpage before (even though I know that's basic). I'm not talking about having the ability to build mom and top type website - I'm talking about busy, professionally done sites.





Can this be learned in a matter of months? Years?

How long would it take to become a highly skilled web designer and developer?
You'll need to choose where to focus on: web design or web development. There's a bit of ambiguity with those two terms, but here's how I see them. Web design is focused on creating the styles, the look and feel that people see on the website. Web development is more focused on fleshing out the unseen details: the code running behind the website, the servers, the databases, the architecture. Both are necessary for professional websites, but you'll tend to specialize in one or the other.





If you have no idea right now, that's fine. Since professionals know a bit of both, you have nothing to lose regardless of where you start.





"although I have worked with frontpage before (even though I know that's basic)"


That counts for nothing. Harsh words, but I doubt that when you designed webpages you thought about things like accessibility, site validation, SEO, and so on. It's a good bet that if you used Frontpage you hid yourself from anything to do with serious coding and development. The tool is rated as junk, Microsoft realizes that, and guess what, they dumped Frontpage in favor of a new set of products. http://www.microsoft.com/products/expres...





Anyway, if you're looking to get into serious professional design, start by learning what the components of webpages are. X/HTML, and CSS are the backbones of websites. Many websites employ Javascript, but you can't rely on it because JS can be turned off. Don't jump into Flash websites either, as it is a popular choice for those wanting flashy webpages, but definitely something pros try not to abuse.





Stay away from Freewebs and whatever amateurish free tools are lying around. Dreamweaver isn't your path to nirvana either.





http://www.alvit.de/handbook/





The above link is a list of links. It's pretty comprehensive, but you'll want to pay attention to the various weblogs regarding web design and development. Sites like A List Apart, Mezzoblue, 456bereastreet, have lots of useful advice on them. Once you learn HTML and CSS, at least to a basic level, you'll have a good starting base for going into more web design or development.





This isn't going to be done very quickly. It definitely takes a number of months, and if you go heavily into web development, you'll spend a few years.
Reply:If you dedicate yourself to it and really focus, than you can probably make lower-level professional websites in months. XHTML is extremely easy to learn, which is the basic structure for a web page. For professional sites you will definately also need JavaScript and PHP. You shouldn't need Perl, but some people prefer to use it over PHP (or in addition to). I think PHP and server-side JavaScript can cover everything Perl would do (in relation to websites). O yeah, you'll need CSS too, but most likely you will learn that while learning XHTML (almost all books and tutorials teach the two side-by-side; CSS barely even counts as a language). Other than some good Photoshop skills, that is everything you will need to make lower-level professional websites. Again, there are other things professionals use (java applets, ASP, etc) but you will be able to get by with XHTML, CSS, PHP, and JavaScript.





O yeah, don't forget a good ol' text editor. Don't bother with Dreamweaver - unless you are REALLY into it, and have loads of money, its not worth it (not even worth the hard drive space to pirate unless you are really designing complex websites).





O yeah, if you're running OSX, get TextMate. Its the best text editor available, and its HTML/XHTML support is tremendous. It costs $49, but for all the langauges it can handle (everything from C++ to Ruby, including all of the langauges web designers need), it is worth every penny. If you're being pathetic and running windows, just Yahoo! text editors and pick one. You won't get far in Notepad.





Good Luck, and email me if you have further questions.
Reply:There are a lot of technology's out there than just xhtml, you would want to know css, javascript, possibly dreamweaver, how to make active server pages, and php pages, you may even want to learn about web servers. You may consider to take some corses in these, depending on what you want to know, i'd say about 2 years minimum for the basics of each of thoose.
Reply:Welcome to the community, we'll make a coder out of you before you know it.





It's never to late to start, anyone can learn to code...it's coding well that takes experience.





Choose your poison first. By that I mean select a set of technologies to focus on and apply some graft to learn them well. Wether it's Ruby on Rails, PHP or .NET doesn't matter too much. All allow you to deliver much the same thing, the trick is to focus on a suite of technologies that have a lot of resources, training etc and learn these first. As you get more experienced you will find you can pickup new languages pretty easily.





It's also important to choose technologies that are in demand so you can get paid...play it safe and choose mainstream to start with (.NET, JSP etc)





Finally, every project is different. You solve different problems in a manner of different ways ...so experience is the key. I know a lot of developers who know the language really well, but are poor designer/developers because they have poor problem solving or logic skills or an inability to see the big picture.





Think of real world applications when you are learning and code these up. Even if they never see the light of day you gain experience by coding real projects not just simple samples you might see in a book.





I'm self taught and run a development team, but you learn something new every day.





I'm a .net developer so my suggested list of stuff to learn well is:


.NET 2.0 (C# or VB.NET)


Atlas, Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation.


Web Standards markup using HTML/XHTML


DOM based scripting (JavaScript)


CSS


XML


SQL and Database Design





Microsoft offer free versions of the Visual Studio and SQL toolsets for download, so it's a great place to start.





http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/expres...


http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/expres...


http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/expres...


http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library...


http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library...





Contact me directly if you have more questions.
Reply:it determines how far u want to learn in designing webs but its usually 2-6 yrs but u can start at freewebs.com

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