Web technologies

Which technologies should you be proficient in?

[kaymeis]

Which technologies are web companies looking for from prospective employees?

kaymeis

[txbakers]

all are valuable if you know them well.

[httpwebwitch]

HTML is the bare minimum. Everyone must be fluent in HTML.

After that, it depends what you plan to do. A designer should be capable with Photoshop and CSS, and be able to build a solid cross-browser layout. Javascript is a nice bonus.

If you are getting into web applications or dynamic web projects, a server language like PHP is attractive, accompanied by a good grasp of SQL.

XML, XSL and XPath are hot skills right now. If you combine those with Javascript, then you can learn AJAX, which is all the rage. AJAX developers are writing their own checks this month.

Many companies are looking for all of the above. Most serious web development projects involve everything I've mentioned here.

[grandpa]

Why would you want to work for someone else? Learn and develop the technologies as they're needed, and put them to work for you, not for someone else. Are you looking at educational considerations here?

BTW, in case no one else said it yet..
Welcome to WebmasterWorld!

[kaymeis]

Thanks for the welcome. About the Educational considerations, I'm thinking about it? what do you think? As much as I'd like to go back to school, I realize that a lot of institutions are too theoretical-not creative enough.

[grandpa]

Creativity is something that I would consider difficult to teach. Theory, on the other hand, is pretty static. You need to understand the underlying theory of any technological tool before you can get creative with it. And, once you've grasped the concepts of one, chances are good that any others will fall into place.

I started my programming career by teaching myself BASIC and some assembly. Then I went to school, where I was taught the basics of COBOL and C and RPG. With that underlying background it was a snap to teach myself enough PHP to get the job done.

What did I learn? Basic programming and troubleshooting techniques, along with language specific rules. The basics, and the troubleshooting, are transferrable to just about any specific language.

Creativity? Give me a task, a pot of coffee, a pack of cigarettes, and some quiet time to get it figured out.

[mack]

Web development means a lot more now than one person doing all the work. It used to be the case that a webmaster would do all website related tasks from design and development to graphical design and much more.

Now it is very different. many organisations will use different people at different stages of the design task.

Being a master of all these aspics is now not quite as important as it used to be, although a grasp of each will be required.

Mack.