I finally decided to start moving to the WEB paradigm.

I would like to start creating web applications, and for that, i think i would need to learn HTML - XHTML - JavaScript - PHP - SQL.

I'm still undefined on PHP or Python or Ruby, but PHP is the most common. Probably i would end up learning also Python, but i already have many things to learn.

I'm a long time "desktop" developer, so i know programming, so, what books are the most "web newbie friendly", but also not dumb books, nowadays?

Also, what recommendation on (webdev) forums do you have?

Thanks.

I can't recommend any books as I don't have any (relevant books!).

I would recommend the site W3Schools though. When I need to brush up on something (like XSLT or DOM scripting) I often end up there. It covers all the areas you list.

When I used to use ASP I had a few sites I frequented (4GuysFromRolla for one), but with PHP I generally just refer to the CHM version of the PHP docs, and ocassionally the online version.

I would obviously suggest learning XHTML syntax, rather than HTML. I would also add CSS to your list.

The good news is that Javascript and PHP are very similar in syntax - Javascript will even accept the dollar sign as a prefix to a variable to help confused PHP developers. Flash's Actionscript is also similar, so it's easy to get started, once you are a web master .

Once you have Javascript and PHP sorted jump on the Web 2.0 bandwagon and try out some AJAX; it rocks!

Good luck.

would start right away.

For XHTML, it recommends HTML first, which i'm doing right now.

Basic HTML is so damn simple it's hard to consider it a language anymore that you might consider BBCode a language. CSS, however, can add a considerable amount of complexity to it.

One other thing to consider is that with HTML/XHTML/CSS/JavaScript, if you have a browser, you can easily test out your code and apply what you learn. With PHP, Ruby, and Python, you're going to have to download an interpreter and possibly a web server, unless you're taking advantage of a web hosts' capabilities.

XHTML is essentially well-formed HTML, with a couple of things to remember, like element attributes in lower case and the slash for singleton tags (HTML4: <br> / XHTML: <br />).

I use PostgreSQL at work, but I would definately recommend downloading Apache and MySQL. You can use IIS, but Apache is a lot better, and you'll generally be hosting your site on servers running Linux, with Apache and MySQL. The good news is that the PHP, MySQL and Apache downloads are all free - and that is all you need to create a complex PHP website.

Here are some links for HTML and CSS that I have found useful (and still do!):

• The aforementioned W3 Schools is good for all of the things you mention.
• HTML Dog is a nice reference for (X)HTML and CSS.
• A List Apart has many a good article aimed at best practises from pretty much every aspect a website may encounter including stuff like user interface design etc...
• CSS Zen Garden is good for inspiration as well as showing the real benefits you can get from CSS.

As for JavaScript, if you're not doing anything advanced then using a pre-existing library might be a good idea. They can make adding functionality to your web pages simpler by removing repetitive code. Some examples include jQuery, prototype, YUI Library, The Dojo Toolkit and mootools. Each has there own quirks but they all essentially do the same thing. Choose which ever one suits the way you work.

Here are some video tutorials for JS that you might find useful. I found them a good introduction and it gives clues as to why things are the way they are.

• The JavaScript Programming Language
  • Part 1
  • Part 2
  • Part 3
  • Part 4
• Theory of the DOM
  • Part 1
  • Part 2
  • Part 3
• Advanced JavaScript
  • Part 1
  • Part 2
  • Part 3

As for PHP, I've tended to use Google and and php.net for reference. Also, while PHP and JavaScript may be similar syntactically I'd be careful about thinking you can programme the same way in both. For instance, in JS you can return functions or even send them to other functions which may make you rethink the way you work in object-orientated design.

I'd just like to point out that this could also be confusing as functions can also start with dollar signs.

Happy coding!

alternative win php/sql test enviroment;
http://www.lighty2go.com/

however, since i never deal with databases, i did my own portable distro (php, perl, lighty, sqlite) for win;
http://blog.somestuff.org/index.php?entry=entry070928-171124
(smaller distro, takes only 0.1 s to start...)

imho: javascript must be the most annoying of this concepts, better start with html + css first, then some php, and only later javascript.

p.s. if you will be developing for nix on win enviroment, take some notes on basic differences (which apply to server behavior as well), like case sensitivity, default dir-list orders and such.