CIW Durability

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I cant help feeling and thinking if this ciw website design manager course is worth anything, because there's not much hands on, apart from maybe the last section.And after trawling through countless job sites, and asking questions, it seems that the market is looking for more than the CIW course trains us for?.I mean ive learned in theory a lot of knowledge, but i cant say i could go into a company and i can be labelled a Web Developer etc.

I know we got to put more in than the course learns us, but ... i dunno.. How do people on here feel?


Thanks

 

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Depends what you mean by durability.
CIW is always on the move and I believe will remain 'durable' for the future.

Is it any good?
Sure, it teaches you stuff that you wouldn't learn by sitting at home playing with Dreamweaver all day. Accessibility, copyright, legal issues, best practice - it's all worth knowing. But you're right, there is very little hands on. But CIW never has been a course on 'how to design and build a website'.

Can you call yourself a web developer after passing CIW?
No. Not really.

CIW has its place, but unfortunately too many people have the wrong preconception of it. This is mainly because TPs 'sell' it as a web design course and get all their facts wrong. If you look at the syllabus on the CIW website, it makes it quite clear what you cover and what you don't.

 

In Section 4 it covers design when the Adobe software is introduced, so its in the syllabus?

 

You'll find that the concepts and best practices of design are covered, but it won't be a step-by-step guide to designing web sites. I recall that Flash is covered too, but pretty much the only thing they were interested in was the fact that it was a vector graphics tool - and what that meant - as opposed to how to actually use it.

But do you need one? These days with modern design tools, pretty much anyone can put together a decent enough website with a couple of days practice. That's only half the story though.

I've seen so many 'kids' who can put together fancy web designs without even doing the basics, such as cross browser compbility checking. It's all a rich tapestry with many parts - there is no single 'one stop' solution to getting proficient in web design - except of course for practice and experience!

 

So to be proficient in XHTML, CSS, JavaScript and a client side language such as Perl or PHP, and the Adobe like tools is not enough?

I mean apart from what the course teaches us, of course i do lots of tutorials and practice and read, so what else is there ?

 

The core stuff is HTML, CSS and JavaScript, be excellent at these and at layout and design and you will be able to get a job as a Front End Web Developer or Web Designer.

Perl and PHP are server side scripting languages, they run on the server as the name suggests.

Web Development is not a trivial undertaking, the larger websites can be very complex indeed, they can have server side languages and libraries, they can use databases and SQL, they can use distributed file systems and algorithms like Map-Reduce, they can integrate with back end services, like payment processing, CRM, CMS, Identity Stores, Workflow, Transaction Managers, etc. There will be architecture / infrastructure concerns like Firewalls, Web Servers, Proxies, Application Servers, content delivery networks / streaming, offload applicances and caching devices.

HTML5 is in the making which will shake things up again.

Other things that can happen on the client, well basically anyone can write a browser plugin and get it installed in the browser, then you can interact with it in HTML. There are common standard plugins for things like Java Applets/JavaFX, Flash, Silverlight, SVG, Instant Messaging, Video, Download Managers, etc.

There are also many things that can be done just in JavaScript without a plugin, sometimes using AJAX and JSON, there are now many common libraries like YUI, JQuery, scriptaculous, prototype, Dojo, Google Gears, Google Maps API, etc.

List of Libraries

As you get more into web development you will care more about browsers, HTTP, SSL, cookies, web servers and exactly what they do for you. You might want to implement SSO or a shopping cart, or you might want to speed up page load by tuning caching or reducing page weight.

There are many other architecture, process, compilance and design aspects involved as Ken has mentioned.

SSO / Federated Identity, Accessibility, SEO, Web Crawling, Web Marketing, Web Metrics, SOA, B2B, B2C, Web Standards, Cross Browser compatibility, Branding, Privacy, Data storage and location and other legal issues, Security, Cross Site Scripting, SQL Injection, DMZ, Domain Registration, SSL, DNS, I18n, etc.

These are some of the many sites that disscuss such issues :-

http://www.infoq.com
http://highscalability.com
http://www.theserverside.com
http://www.w3.org/
http://www.w3schools.com/

Ultimately certification is generally pretty irrelevant to web development.

 

Some of the more fun things you can do to pick some things up about the web :-

1. Play with various firefox plugins, heres my list :-

- Adblock Plus 1.2.1
- Add-on Collector 1.1.1
- BetterPrivacy 1.48.3
- Cache Status 0.7.9
- CacheToggle 0.5
- CodeBurner for Firebug 1.5.2
- CoLT 2.4.7
- CookieCuller 1.4
- DNA 1.0.0.1
- DOM Inspector 2.0.7
- DownThemAll! 2.0b3
- FastestFox 4.1.6
- Firebug 1.5.4
- Firecookie 1.0.2
- Java Console 6.0.21
- Live HTTP headers 0.16
- NoScript 2.0.1
- QuickJava 1.7.2
- Regular Expressions Tester 3.1.10
- Tamper Data 11.0.1
- Torbutton 1.2.5
- Web Developer 1.1.8
- XPath Checker 0.4.4
- YSlow 2.0.7

2. Play with browser settings

Look into what all the options do and mean. Once you think you understand the standard stuff look into about:config etc.

3. Reverse engineer websites with Firebug, Http Headers, Fire Cookie, Tamper Data, Fiddler and the like.

 

You had to ask...

 

Yes lol.Think ill just concentrate on designing for now, get good and go with the flow.Keeping my ear to the ground and progressing with knowledge.

If i didnt ask i wouldnt know, wish i did this years ago when i was younger... im old now in my 30s lol.


Thanks for the replies by the way.

How basic is this.. needs more work obviously.. but as im still crawling and not yet walking (in experience terms) we got to start somewhere eh

 

This is the syllabus for the rest of the course, it looks good to me, but not on its own obviously:


Section 4 Part C – Design Methodology and Technology

Lesson 20: Site Development with Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 — Introduction

Adobe Dreamweaver CS3
Dreamweaver Layout Options

Lesson 21: Site Development with Dreamweaver CS3 — Basic Features

Page Layout in Dreamweaver
Creating Image Maps in Dreamweaver
Creating Templates in Dreamweaver
Importing Content in Dreamweaver

Lesson 22: Site Development with Dreamweaver CS3 — Advanced Features

Rollover Images in Dreamweaver
Dreamweaver Web Forms
Dreamweaver Behaviors
Dreamweaver Assets and Library
Editing X/HTML in Dreamweaver
Jump Menus in Dreamweaver
Site Search Forms in Dreamweaver
Adobe Exchange

Lesson 23: Web Pages with Macromedia HomeSite 5.5

Macromedia HomeSite 5.5
HomeSite Templates
File Management in HomeSite
Tag-Editing Features in HomeSite

Lesson 24: Image Editing with Adobe Fireworks CS3

Adobe Fireworks CS3
Creating an Image Document in Fireworks
Adding Text to Images in Fireworks
Cropping Images in Fireworks
Image Layers in Fireworks
Image Frames in Fireworks
Transparent Images in Fireworks
Image Slices in Fireworks

Lesson 25: Multimedia with Adobe Flash CS3

Adobe Flash CS3
Flash Technology Features
Developing with Flash
Flash Shapes
Colour and Fills in Flash

Lesson 26: Multimedia with Flash CS3 — Timeline, Layers, Symbols and Buttons

Flash Timeline
Flash Layers
Saving and Publishing Flash Movies
Flash Symbols
Flash Buttons
Customizing the Flash Library

Lesson 27: Multimedia with Flash CS3 — Tweens

Flash Tweens
Motion Tweens in Flash
Shape Tweens in Flash
Tweening Text in Flash
Lesson 28: Multimedia with Flash CS3 — Movie Clips

Flash Movie Clips
Adding Sound to Flash Files
Adding Flash Movies to X/HTML Files
Testing for the Flash Plug-In

Lesson 29: Multimedia with Flash CS3 — ActionScript, Masks and Practical Uses

Flash ActionScript
Mask Layers in Flash
Using SWF and SVG Files on the Web
Flash and Accessibility

Lesson 30: JavaScript and DHTML Fundamentals

Why Script?
JavaScript and Common Programming Concepts
What Is JavaScript?
JavaScript vs. Other Languages
Embedding JavaScript into X/HTML
Using JavaScript to Communicate with the User
JavaScript Functions
Using JavaScript for Browser Detection
Dynamic HTML (DHTML)

Lesson 31: Plug-Ins and Java Applets

Plug-In Technology
Plug-In Installation
Adobe Shockwave and Flash Players
Adobe Reader
RealNetworks RealPlayer
Rich Media Content
Creating a Downloadable File
Introduction to Java
Java Applets
Applets and Animation
Applet Authoring Tools and Resources

Lesson 32: HTTP Servers and Web Applications

What Is an HTTP Server?
Accessing Servers and Services
Basic HTTP Server Administration
Server-Side Technologies
Web Servers and Cookies
Enabling, Disabling and Deleting Cookies
Setting Cookie Files
XML and Web Applications

Lesson 33: Databases

Web Design and Databases
Database Anatomy
Database Queries
Database Management System (DBMS)
Connecting Web Pages to Databases
Database Tools, Products and Programs


Lesson 34: Web Site Publishing and Maintenance

Web Site Testing
Web Site Publishing
Web Site Hosting
Web Publishing with an FTP Client
Web Publishing with Expression Web
Web Publishing with Dreamweaver
Comparing Web Publishing Tools
Maintaining Web Sites
Web Server and Web Site Security

 

Looks reasonable to me, like all certs, some of the topics are less relevant than others, but it should give you a general idea.

I like the W3schools stuff, good intros to all the major subjects.

They seem to cover a lot of ground, I wonder how much real depth you will get on things.

Theres a lot to learn about HTML, JavaScript, CSS/Design, XML/XPath/XSLT, AJAX, Flash, Java, Apache, etc whole books on each subject.

I've never seen Dreamweaver, Homesite, or ExpressionWeb used much, but maybe thats just the circles I move in, get yourself Notepad2 or similar and learn fundamentals.

Your site looks fairly clean but a little dark, if you're hoping to win design work then you really need to sell yourself with a nice designs or case studies / client projects etc.

If you're hoping to use it to land a conventional job based on technical skills then you need to emphasize that with things like, applications / libraries written, open source contributed to, online CV with computer science university degree etc.

Personally I would not give your training provider free advertising, I'd link to the CIW site direct.

I'd also ditch the google and bing search boxes and alter the 'get designed' stuff, make it appear on a seperate page instead of a div popout.

I'd also try and add more content and make the site more about you and your business and less about certification.

 

Thanks for the advice.I dont want to get into too much computer programming, just what's necessary for Web Design projects.

HTML, CSS, JavaScript etc is good enough, i reckon.


PS; I'm not sure what you mean by conventional job?

 

Considering taking the E-Commerce & Project Management course.But maybe i could learn the concepts a cheaper way?