David Russell

Over the past several months, I’ve received many emails about Web design and development. Some of the questions are simple and have complex answers, while other complex questions have quite simple answers. There have also been plenty of questions that I did not have the answer to and those questions inspired me to research. Over the next several weeks, I’ll answer many of the questions that have been frequently asked. This will centralize my responses and save valuable time when replying to a frequently asked question. Ultimately, all the questions will be gathered on a static page of this site for archival and easy access.

I started tinkering with Web design and development in 1996 after discovering the World Wide Web and the Yahoo! search engine. At first, I learned HTML and hand-coded (or copy/pasted code¹) to build single pages. They were gray with horizontals rules and quite ugly. I discovered Microsoft FrontPage around the same time and decided to fully rely on WYSIWIG creation of sites and abandon the process of hand-coding. After a couple of years of mild interest, I gave up the hobby and concentrated on music and school.

In 2003, my interest was renewed and I was quite surprised by how much the Web evolved since I had last been involved deeply in it. Specifically, there was so much discussion (perhaps heated argumentation is the best description) amongst Web developers regarding the issue of Web standards. I was amazed at what I discovered, but never really practiced standards-based coding. In fact, I spent the first year of my renewal doing simple WYSIWIG-created sites using Macromedia Studio MX (now Adobe CS3 Web), honing my design skills in Fireworks and allowing Dreamweaver to create the layout based on “slices” from Fireworks. The right tools. The wrong approach. It’s embarrassing now, but that’s what I knew to do. Soon after, I really began to buy in to the Web standards movement and slid back into HTML with relative ease. I also began learning CSS and voraciously consumed as many tutorials at the W3 Schools as possible. At the same time, I was carefully researching information about the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Web Standards Project (WaSP).

My professional career in Web design and development began in April 2005 as I was employed by the Alabama State Bar. Not only did I increase my skill in HTML and CSS, but I learned so much about server administration, managing Apache, analytics and security. Most importantly, I started working in programming languages, namely ColdFusion on the job (I learned a ton from our resident programmer) and PHP at home. I collected and installed many open source applications like PunBB and WordPress and just opened the hood and started learning the ins and outs of each system. I love the power and flexibility of these applications and the way the content just flows out of the MySQL database and into the markup with such ease. Needless to say, I was hooked on what could be accomplished with the power of the dynamic Web. And I developed a deep appreciation for content management systems. My whole idea of Web development took a radical shift into developing Web sites using these powerful systems as a means to publish content. I started this site around that time and began to chronicle my experiences in the profession.

Working a full-time job in the industry was probably one of the most enriching things that could have happened to my craft. Since then, I have continued to learn both fundamental and bleeding edge techniques in the art. Even today, I learn something new with each project.

Feel free to comment here. If you are a Web designer/developer, when did you start? What’s your story?

[tags]web, design, development, html, css, w3c, standards, adobe, macromedia[/tags]

¹I do not recommend copying and pasting code as a means of web developing.