Web Coder Plus

 

Web Coder plus, a site dedicated to all aspects of developing web sites using LAMP.
  • HTML
  • PHP
  • Apache
  • CSS
  • MySQL
  • SEO
  • and more...
Article by: Dion van Huyssteen
Welcome to Web Coder Plus. This site is currently still under development so most sections will not work at all. Please feel free to check back in a couple of days as new things will be added almost daily.

When I first got involved with web design, it was like many people, to create my own home page. Being a software developer by trade, I instantly tried to do everything, from Javascript roll-overs to complex graphical navigation systems. The page was terrible; it didn't follow web standards (not that many pages did back in the 90's), required a huge amount of effort to update the slightest thing, was completely unfriendly to search engine spiders and generally broke all laws of usability and design. The site fell into disrepair, and years passed as I focused on my career. Last year (2004) I finally decided to tackle web design again, and this time round I spent a bit more time and effort focusing on the harder things, that is usability and design.

One thing that struck me however, was that there seemed to be very few sites that took the overall view of web design. While there are many sites that specialise in one thing or another, there are very few that allow you to see how to link up all the various aspects. And so the idea for Web Coder Plus was born.

Web Coder Plus is a site that will be devoted to developing a web site using LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP). We chose LAMP since it is the most popular combination found in cheap web hosting, and the sheer number of free tools found for developing web sites under LAMP means that even the poorest of aspiring web developers can get off the ground in no time. While we will be covering how to code your website using LAMP, we will also cover topics such as search engine optimisation (SEO), usability, security and more.

While we are targeting the beginner web designer, the moderate to experienced will no doubt find something of interest. We do expect you to download and have at the ready the help files for MySQL and PHP, since reading code off this site is good, but modifying it to your own needs will require some understanding above and beyond what you may read here. Having an understanding of Linux and Apache is helpful, but not a necessity as most hosting providers will limit your access to what you can change there.

Once the site is up and running, this front page will no doubt change, and new articles will be posted regularly. So please check back soon.