There are hundreds of different ways of making web pages using different frameworks and languages and the one thats hot and the most up to date is all of them. Every web shop works differently. However the one thing that almost all of them has in common is that the glue of the internet is HTML, Javascript and CSS.

Learn these before progressing any further. You can probably make the site using only these but, even if you can't you will still need to know them.

In all seriousness, web development is a mess, and you need to be doing it almost full-time if you want to stay current with the latest trends. I'd advise you to consider just how important this is to you.

This. "The notion of best practices in frontend world has a half life of about 3 months." said Steven Sanderson (he created knockout.js years ago) once in a presentation (

), and he was
a, generous about the timeframe
b, only talking about frontend. Going full stack is the way where madness lies.
(I'm a "full stack" .net dev by trade, and often there are times when the regular 8 hour workday just isn't enough to keep on top of all the new and shiny frontend and backend stuff. )

The more I learn the more discouraged I get.....

Oh well, this project will be the smallest I've ever tried....hopefully

The more I learn the more discouraged I get.....

Oh well, this project will be the smallest I've ever tried....hopefully

Let's reword the question. What is your EXACT goal for this website? What EXACTLY are you trying to accomplish with this website?

The more I learn the more discouraged I get.....

Oh well, this project will be the smallest I've ever tried....hopefully

Let's reword the question. What is your EXACT goal for this website? What EXACTLY are you trying to accomplish with this website?

No special goal. I just want to create the site to learn how to create web sites. It would go like this. Some random person would type in "Laurentstar.com" into their url and it would take them to my site which displays a graphic. That's all it would do.

Fire up your text editor, write some HTML, CSS and maybe JavaScript if you are into that sort of thing, and upload the whole collection to some HTTP-accessible location on the web. Or pay somebody like SquareSpace to do most of the heavy lifting for you.

Is there a specific technique or goal you want to accomplish here?

Sorry I meant to +1 this post, accidentally downvoted it. I don't want anyone accidentally thinking this is bad advice because it's not :)

My take on the problem?

Download WordPress, install a MySQL database and php, and follow through the process of installation.

It's very easy to use, just make sure you keep it updated!

And, you don’t need an external server to get started. As braindigitalis has suggested, you can install the web server software individually, or you can used a pre-packaged LAMP stack (WAMP, for Windows) that has all that bundled and configured together.

EDIT:
To clarify braindigitalis’s point, this setup is ideal while developing locally-- the entire stack is only accessible from your machine only or local network. Once you are ready to push it somewhere, then you’ll need to find a suitable host and push your work there.

And, you don’t need an external server to get started. As braindigitalis has suggested, you can install the web server software individually, or you can used a pre-packaged LAMP stack (WAMP, for Windows) that has all that bundled and configured together.

While it's fine to use this for testing, I would be very careful using this for a live site (e.g. self hosting at home).

There are many security and stability implications that can and will hurt you if you're not aware and maintaining your home hosted server can become as time consuming as your game development.

I've been self hosting various sites at home for decades and it's a pain but also educational and rewarding. I also host on virtual and dedicated servers, which these days are a cheap and better solution.

Good luck!

Honestly I would skip the entire hottest and most modern. The basics are still the basics, and you'll need to learn this regardless. Start here http://www.w3schools.com/

There seems to be some confusion in this thread whether you want to learn webdev as a long term goal, or just want to see what's it all about. Regardless i would recommend you to take the easy route first.

To get the domain name, I would go for a cheap webhost such as http://one.com (the only international site I have experience with) their cheapest tier will be more than sufficient. There are also a few free alternatives, but then you'll need the domain hosted somewhere else (some dns registrant).

Personally I use a cheap VPS at digital ocean, and host my domains at a Danish site (gratisdns.dk), but if a webpage is all you need you don't need this.

If you want to go modern, I know that static site generators are quite hot at the moment https://www.staticgen.com/ but seriously ignore this and follow the http://www.w3schools.com/ link instead :)

Edit: Also you might want to use Sublime Text or Notepad++ (nice text editors, that don't get in your way)

Honestly I would skip the entire hottest and most modern. The basics are still the basics, and you'll need to learn this regardless. Start here

There seems to be some confusion in this thread whether you want to learn webdev as a long term goal, or just want to see what's it all about. Regardless i would recommend you to take the easy route first.

To get the domain name, I would go for a cheap webhost such as http://one.com (the only international site I have experience with) their cheapest tier will be more than sufficient. There are also a few free alternatives, but then you'll need the domain hosted somewhere else (some dns registrant).


Personally I use a cheap VPS at digital ocean, and host my domains at a Danish site (gratisdns.dk), but if a webpage is all you need you don't need this.

If you want to go modern, I know that static site generators are quite hot at the moment https://www.staticgen.com/ but seriously ignore this and follow the http://www.w3schools.com/ link instead :)

Edit: Also you might want to use Sublime Text or Notepad++ (nice text editors, that don't get in your way)

I think this is seriously overkill.

If you want to learn how to make websites, this can be a decade of learning to do it well, and can be as time consuming as making a game.

The OP said he wants to put up a simple site for his game project, dedicating months or years to learning to make websites well is the wrong path. You have to learn html5, css3, browser quirks and oddities, javascript and jquery, bootstrap, and more if you want it done good.

Alternatively use an existing solution such as WordPress, sitecake (my personal favourite right now) and simply deploy it to a digital ocean droplet. Sorted.

Sitecake is less advanced than WordPress and is a static generator as vildninja mentioned. These don't require a database and can cope with many thousands of times more requests at once if done right (good if your project is ever featured in gaming press and gets hammered by hits).

You can have such a solution up and running in minutes using the css stylesheet that comes with it. As an example take a look at one of my sites for my game.

Hope this helps!