
Ask HN: I need to built a site.I am a beginner web developer. PLEASE HELP ME - dprophecyguy
Hey i am beginner web developer. And i am a CS undergraduate. For a long time i have been thinking about writing blog. 
But i just couldn&#x27;t start anywhere. Now i have been learning Web Development and i have reached upto an average level in Front-End. I have knowledge about :
HTML , CSS
JS
JQuery (JSON, AJAX)<p>So the blog idea has started ticking again. And this time i want to make it in form of a site. So that i can use my skills and test them on a real world scenario. But i have no knowledge of where to start and what extra skills to acquire so that i can work on it. Please someone suggest me anything advice, article, blog. 
I don&#x27;t want to use wordpress or anything. I want to make a site on my own. With the help of technology and skills.
So please guide me about the technologies that i have to use plus all the skills that i have to acquire. My aim is to become a full stack developer and i think there is no better way to learn rather than to do that thing.
======
JPLeRouzic
You could use OpenShift of Redhat or a similar product.

But the simplest idea is to host your own Web server on your own computer.
Install a Bitnami Lamp server and observe how it works, before making any
modifications. You will access your local Web server with any browser at
[http://localhost](http://localhost)

Bitnami lamp is a cool product:
[https://bitnami.com/stack/lamp](https://bitnami.com/stack/lamp)

------
mindcrime
You'll need a backend of some sort - a database to store the entries, and some
kind of server to serve up your initial HTML / css / javascript files. If
you're a big javascript person, node.js might be a good choice. There are TONS
of options here though, including probably multiple choices each, for every
programming language you can name. But some obvious ones, to me, would be Ruby
on Rails, or Grails, or maybe Play. For a database, either Postgres or MySQL
would be a fine choice.

Once you have chosen a backend, you'll have to decide how much, if any,
"server side rendering" you'll want to do, or if you want to make a pure SPA
that does everything via ajax calls to the backend.

This might be of use to you:

[http://blog.hexican.com/2010/04/building-a-blog-
using-7-simp...](http://blog.hexican.com/2010/04/building-a-blog-
using-7-simple-steps-in-grails/)

~~~
dprophecyguy
Hey thanks a lot. Can you please let me explain little further about "Server
side rendering" and "Pure SPA" can you tell me which would be optimum as in
order to learn and apply. And a bit extra knowledge about this process.

~~~
mindcrime
Server-side rendering just means generating the HTML that will be displayed by
the browser, entirely on the server, and then returning it in response to some
request. This is as opposed to the model where your initial request returns a
minimal bit of HTML and a big load of Javascript, and from there on the
Javascript dynamically re-renders the HTML based on the response from AJAX
calls. This is generally described as having a "single page application" or
SPA.

In reality, apps can be a blend of both approaches. Which model you use is up
to you. And I'm not an expert on the front-end stuff, so I wouldn't feel
comfortable making a recommendation, to be honest. All I'll say is that, to
me, server-side rendering is more intuitive and straighforward to implement
and it's what I usually do since I'm not primarily a front-end specialist.

~~~
dprophecyguy
Hey, I have choosen Node.js for Back-End and Express as the frame work because
i am aiming for MEAN stack web application. Can you please guide me for the
tools and tutorials from where i can be prepared for the Back End Stuff. And
yeah i will go with Server-side rendering. Thanks in advance! You made my day
!

~~~
sova
Okay, well you can use Angular or Angular 2 (I would recommend sticking with
Angular1) and let's see..

MongoDB, Angular 1, Node.js, Maybe some templating language for your css?

Anyway, you can run node on your own machine. Are you using mac or linux or
win? Did you mention? It's pretty straightforward no matter which platform
now, which is nice. So you make a javascript file that node can run, you run
it from the command-line, and on your computer you have the "server" running.
It's got a port, so when you go to localhost:3000 or whatever you set it to be
via browser you'll see your site.

The next step after you make your site with Node is to get some webspace to
run it. Basically you want a remote box that you can SSH into (securely
command line access another box) and then clone your project (over github) or
just upload it yourself. Then you run it, you make sure you have a web-server
running (like apache2 or nginx) and you serve your website over the internet.

If you want to add a domain, purchase a domain on namecheap.com and go to the
DNS settings. Set an A Record to the IP address of your box.

Viola, you've made an internets.

------
fosco
some spiffy templates here --> [https://html5up.net/](https://html5up.net/)

in regards to > Please someone suggest me anything advice, article, blog

write something you are passionate and enthusastic about, otherwise it will
likely not be a fun experience for you. for example, if you really enjoy
hiking write about all steps of planning a long hiking trip. there are many
examples of others doing something similar... in any case I would start with
something I enjoy and like talking about as charisma is contagious

