Forums: Projects Theory and Miscellanea:

Hi all,
Just wondered if i could ask your advice.
Now that working freelance is really paying off for me I need to think a lot more seriously about what I do.
Because I do multimedia design (ie a bit of everything, PowerPoint presentations, Flash animations, Touch screen kiosk software made with Director etc) I am not really an expert in web design and back end coding but know enough to give a client what they need.

I am starting to become aware though that because I am not learning any more coding technologies or finding out more about things like css, javascript I am just kind of sticking to what I know and not moving forward and don't want to suddenly find that everything that I use doesn't work any more.

I currently use ASP with an Access database for backend stuff and still use fixed size websites built with tables.

My question is now I seem to building more and more big websites what technologies should I be using and what are the best practices for building websites?

I know it's a bit of a broad question but any advice greatly appreciated. Are there any good books etc

Cheers,
Suzy

If you find yourself building sites that get more traffic than previous work, you might consider moving to a different db - Access is pretty weak when it comes to concurrent requests. It's fairly easy to migrate from Access to SQL Server; the only thing you'll have to watch out for is the handful of datatypes that don't map directly from one to the other. MySQL is a bit stickier but is also a good deal cheaper.

Glad to hear business is working out, Suzy - good on ya!

Baron's already given you the skinny on the DB situation. (MS Access!?!?!? )

ASP has been superceded by .Net and all its shiny baubles. According to some friends who have gone down that route, the productivity gains and improvements to the language are worth the move. There's a few on 12stone who are up to speed with .Net and could give you pointers if you get stuck.

I went the other way and leapt into PHP/Mysql from Classic ASP. I didn't find the transition too hard - in fact, I was pretty blown away by what was possible with PHP without the need for COM objects or additional dlls et all. Again, Back End's the place to be for guru assistance.

or....

Now could be the time to check out Ruby/Rails or Python/Django. Yes, they're different languages to what you're used to but are viable alternatives to .net and php and come with excellent web frameworks that can help with learning.

With regards to CSS and Javascript, I'd say it's well worth learning the ropes and moving away from using tables for layout. Front End's the place for tips/questions. It may also be worth getting to grips with some javascript and learning how to manipulate the DOM although I suppose you could use a JS framework such as Mootools, JQuery or Mochikit and customise as required.

Of course, being a freelancer you have limited time to learn all these new technologies while still balancing current projects and your home life so I'd suggest the following priorities:

1. CSS
2. DB - get rid of Access!!
3. .Net or alternative
4. Javascript

Incidentally, Lingo's syntax is very similar to Javascript.

And to Ari's comment.

Typically as a freelancer you'll be doing the design/ implementation by yourself. For that very reason learning table-less designs makes little sense to me - a year or 2 down the line when a client does want design changes to the site, I simply bill them again, and change the php template and stylesheet, which is very quick. Secondly you don't have the hassle of having to test in 47 different browsers.

The first thing I would dump is Access. Whether you decide on PHP or .NET is completely dependent on your customer base; in my experience bigger corporates prefer .NET / SQL combination, while smaller/medium companies prefer PHP/ mySQL.

Cheers guys, that helps a lot. I'm doing crap loads of work this month, average for next month and might have a quiet April so I'm hoping to take some time to learn a few things. I definitely do need to move away from Access though as less web hosting companies are supporting it.

I do find one of my problem's being that I work with Lingo 50% of the time and always end up mixing my ASP with that when writing code. I can't decide on .NET or PHP, I'll have a look at some tutorial sites for both and see what takes my fancy. I'm presuming both can be used with IIS on my own machine?

Thanks again,
Suzy

Almost forgot... In terms of best practices, one thing you can do that will make managing large sites a heck of a lot easier is to take advantage of includes (assuming you don't already).

I, for example, like to separate all of my page elements into individual nested files:

pageview.cfm
 head.cfm
 body.cfm
    header.cfm
      mainnavigation.cfm
    pagecontent.cfm
    footer.cfm
      footernavigation.cfm
      copyrightandcredit.cfm

The baron is right on the money. Includes doesn't take away the pain updates are to do, but you can train a secretary for instance to do updates, which help cover their salaries, and you can spend time on better paying projects.

Hey Suzy - glad to hear things are going well for you!

And I'm really glad you've asked this question, because every time I heard you mention Access in a thread I had to bite my tongue cos I didn't think you needed the extra hassle of me telling you to ditch your DB :-)

I reckon you should go with .NET, probably using Visual Basic as the coding language to ease your transition. I'm new to .NET myself, just learnt a little C# for it, but I think that you'd find it easier to work with .NET that PHP, and probably your client base are more likely to support .NET than they are PHP? That's just a guess though.

Unless someone knows of a free host, you could get a cheap GoDaddy.com web site that can let you play with .NET and SQL Server - that's what I've done. It's pennies really.

One of the reasons I use Access so much is because I also use it for developing software for touch screen kiosks so the client can update the content on a number of kiosks from one central location which it is perfect for but like you say for websites I really need to use something different. Thanks all for your advice

on the front end development part, i'd definitely stay away from those nasty tables and focus more on CSS. you'll find your life a whole lot easier when you make the switch, trust me.

heres some great books on learning CSS:


Amazon Link


Amazon Link

Definitely CSS. Look into using an established framework like Yahoo's GUI tools. It takes a lot of the cross browser headaches away.

Another strategy I'd recommend would be to find a good open source CMS and learn to skin/theme it well. Take advantage of the development time that has already gone into these projects. Most are php/mysql driven so finding good cheap hosting is pretty easy. You can either use the CMS to update/maintain the site yourself or hand it over to the client as an added value.

Get these processes down and you can start concentrating on design and making things look great.

I think LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) understanding is pretty key these days for smaller freelance web work, only because so many potential clients who might have an existing site they want redone are likely on a hosting setup that is going to be preconfigured for PHP and MySQL (but that's probably more true of small, independent clients than ones who are supporting touchscreens and such. A lot of Microsoft lock-in on the bigger stuff...)

Plus, and maybe this is just me, but PHP is really easy and enjoyable to use.

Regardless of what backend tech you use, building a solid understanding of how to use CSS is going to help you a ton. It's such an amazing shift in how you build sites once you approach them that way.

for all the flak that Access cops it doesn't do a bad job. Among other things, the missus used it for a 15,000 lines, multiple cell database for a gov research facility. I was quite proud she was able to bring it all together from the spaghetti it was when they lobbed her in to "make it work".
As mentioned already, the main prob with it is it's not widely hosted. It doesn't seem that long ago when PHP and MySQL were the norm so it's interesting to now hear about the current shift.
As for handling Web upgrades, you'll love CSS once you've learnt it. I'd even drop a couple o' fiddy's that you'll be quite a master (or should that be mistress ?)of it and make it look like you've been doing it for years after only a few months. It will all depend on how much and how soon you get to use what you've learnt.

Hi Guys,
Just wanted to thank you all for your advice and assure you it hasn't fell on deaf ears.
Finally got a bit of spare time and managed to build a website design completely using CSS and not one table in sight.
I finally understand how it all works and like you said it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.
Still haven't got round to switching to ASP.net and MySQL but I should be able to price it into a possible future job.

like a good wine, you're improving over time Suzy

Cheers tenPlus. Makes me feel specially better as I turn 30 soon.
I'll have to remember that line