Resources

Published: Feb 03, 2006

Let's face it: working on something big and new involves a lot of learning, and yes, creating your very first website from scratch, or trying to build one in a new language definitely qualifies as "big and new". Learning can be tough, and perhaps the single most contributing factor to the complexity of this process is the sheer amount of information available on the subject. With so many resources varying in approach, perspective and focus it is often very hard to sort things out and get a clear picture of what is going on.

Since I've already been through many of these struggles, I took the liberty to summarize my personal encounters with the technologies involved in web development, and present them in the form of annotated links to some of the best materials I happened to come across during my study and research.

The links are organized by subject area, with each section typically structured as follows:

• Overview
• Standards and Specifications
• Books
• Online Resources

The lists are highly subjective as they represent a perspective heavily influenced by my personal experience, background and views. Therefore, while my overall intent is to help you save time and effort in getting up to speed with the technology of interest, I recommend that you use discretion and not take my notes for granted. A practical approach to learning new material would be to check out the appropriate Resources section I have compiled, give it a go and see if it works for you. Chances are, it will. If it does not, well, that's probably because your belief system is not compatible with mine .