discuss Web development tips I Wish knew sooner

[Cpvr]

I’ve been doing web development for the past 20+ years, however, there are various things that I wish I knew back then that I now know.

Such as, compressing files and images, setting up a backend cache system for performance increases.

I also wish I knew more about seo when I was younger.


What about you? What are some of the things that you wish you knew about web development when you first started?

 

[Yama]

I studied Computer Science in school. I was so fascinated about it that I was not satisfied with what they taught at school so I went to computer institute to learn extra. But I did not choose computer in college.Since I was not using what I learned and was using just basic things like Word for example, I forgot what I learned. I wish I had taken it seriously and learned programming.

 

[Unvarnished]

If only I could turn back the clock and learn about the importance of web accessibility before embarking on designing web-based projects, it would have been a game changer.

 

[Harsh World]

Such as, compressing files and images, setting up a backend cache system for performance increases.

I don't want to speak out of sounding like an idiot, but I don't think this was a thing 20 years ago. You exported as JPEG or GIF and got what you got (you could change the quality, but did it matter that much on those screens?). However, I'm unsure there was even backend caching....

Someone would need to tell me if this were a thing because I couldn't fathom all of that in the control panels that we did have unless it was all CLI and other third-party programs to do it, much like it is now, but much more accessible.

As because of my answer, "web development tips I wish knew sooner" is hard to follow up to as we evolved from (when I began) HTML 4 and XHTML 1with various client-side and server-side code to help out, which is all depreciated in favor of today. I must say, without a background of it, it would be hard to understand today's development processes, but it doesn't help much knowing that now.

I suppose that aside, it would be SEO tips. However, those always change. You can be doing <h1> keyword stuffing one day to rank #1 and then the next day drop to #1000 because that's no longer used for the algorithm.

 

[lens]

If I had only known a little more about the best practices in security when I first started, it would have saved so many sleepless nights if I had just understood those common vulnerabilities and how to protect oneself from them.

Realistically, knowing more about the design patterns and principles would have helped me a lot.

 

[Jason]

My early forums were torn apart by spam bots because I couldn't understand how to stop them or even that they were bots.

 

[Harsh World]

If I had only known a little more about the best practices in security when I first started, it would have saved so many sleepless nights if I had just understood those common vulnerabilities and how to protect oneself from them.

Even then, most shared hosting was so vulnerable to anyone offering PHP hosting.

I got to experience this first hand when I learned the system() and exec() functions.

I could essentially command-line from my home directory and explore other domain's home directories, opening files, and if I wanted to, write to them.

 

[Shawn]

My early forums were torn apart by spam bots because I couldn't understand how to stop them or even that they were bots.

Same. My first big forum was phpBB2 back when it was new. Adding a plugin back then was manual. You had to edit pages and pages of code. I didn't know much about spam other than I had to delete like 200 posts a day.

I think a spam plugin was the first addon I added LOL

 

[Jason]

Same. My first big forum was phpBB2 back when it was new. Adding a plugin back then was manual. You had to edit pages and pages of code. I didn't know much about spam other than I had to delete like 200 posts a day.

I think a spam plugin was the first addon I added LOL

That stuff can be stopped at user registration, but I didn't understand that then

 

[Shawn]

That stuff can be stopped at user registration, but I didn't understand that then

Yep. It's easy as cheese now! Security questions is my go-to!

 

[Cpvr]

I don't want to speak out of sounding like an idiot, but I don't think this was a thing 20 years ago. You exported as JPEG or GIF and got what you got (you could change the quality, but did it matter that much on those screens?). However, I'm unsure there was even backend caching....

Someone would need to tell me if this were a thing because I couldn't fathom all of that in the control panels that we did have unless it was all CLI and other third-party programs to do it, much like it is now, but much more accessible.

As because of my answer, "web development tips I wish knew sooner" is hard to follow up to as we evolved from (when I began) HTML 4 and XHTML 1with various client-side and server-side code to help out, which is all depreciated in favor of today. I must say, without a background of it, it would be hard to understand today's development processes, but it doesn't help much knowing that now.

I suppose that aside, it would be SEO tips. However, those always change. You can be doing <h1> keyword stuffing one day to rank #1 and then the next day drop to #1000 because that's no longer used for the algorithm.

Compression was around 20 years ago, but it wasn’t advanced as it is today.

Many servers didn’t have gzip compression enabled by default, so a lot of webmasters weren’t aware of this option at the time.

The main thing that was missing back then was the CDN options, which is quite popular today. Websites would have been a lot faster if we had them.

Not to mention flash as well.

 

[Jason]

Yep. It's easy as cheese now! Security questions is my go-to!

I suppose if I had asked about it on Digital Point back in the day, I would have figured it out, but just never bothered to.

 

[Shawn]

I suppose if I had asked about it on Digital Point back in the day, I would have figured it out, but just never bothered to.

Yeah. Back when it was smaller and probably a bit friendlier. These big boards these days aren't very friendly. I shy away from them for the most part. They have their regulars and their cliques. Maybe I'm wrong about them but that's how most of them go.

 

[Demon_skeith]

This is just a lesson that there is always something new to learn, the industry is always changing and coming up with things, for better or worse to help the process. I know I was pretty good with HTML but when HTML5 came out, it changed up some things.