This is the second part of an article meant to get anyone started with web development.
If you have read the first article last week, you should have done your homework and learned the foundation of HTML and CSS from the WorldWide Web consortium’s website: https://www.w3.org/
But HTML and CSS alone would not be sufficient to make a living out of web development.
In fact, as soon as I realised the limitations of static websites programmed in HTML and CSS I started exploring dynamic Content Management Systems — better known as CMS — such as Wordpress, Drupal and my favourite Joomla, formerly known as Mambo.
The difference a static website and a dynamic one has nothing to do with animation, but rather the way content is published.
If write two pages of HTML and upload them on a server, I would need to link them in order to connect to each other.
In a CMS, on the contrary, the content is loaded by a PHP page (let us imagine this as the older brother of HTML) and “pulled” from a database where the content is stored.
In other words, each HTML page is stand-alone, while using a CMS, a single PHP page can render thousands of “views” within the same page, thus creating the illusion that multiple pages are created. This is what they dynamic refer to: the fact that each view (or page) is generated dynamically through the content in the database.
That is a far more efficient way to develop websites as reduces the need to actually program from scratch, giving a massive head-start when creating a new website.
If we were to start from scratch all the times, web development might not be seen as a profitable business opportunity because of the time wasted in redoing the same tasks over and over.
Whereas with CMS we can upload on our server a basic package of files and folders that get us ready to work in a matter of minutes. The three CMS that I have mentioned are by far the most popular and they are all OpenSource and free to use.
Getting started is super easy.
Step 1: register a web domain. You can do so in many ways. In Oman we can use https://www.registry.om/
A web domain is simply a string of text that points to a server. A server is identified by a numeric public address that can be accessed through an alphanumeric domain.
So, step 2: get a hosting plan. There are thousands of them that you can choose, and in Oman we have world class hosting services.
Once you sign up for a server subscription, you will be given access to a remote folder where you will put your files and folders.
But first, step 3: point the web domain to the server through the registrar admin panel. You can enquire with your host and registrar to get help. They are usually very friendly and willing to help. Once you have your server you can host multiple websites and start your business as a web developer.
Start exploring the CMS world by exploring the resources on the main 3 free services (from the easiest to the most difficult):
Wordpress: https://wordpress.org/
Joomla: https://www.joomla.org/
Drupal: https://www.drupal.org/
[The writer is a member of the International Press Association]
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