title: Jump-starting web development
body: <p>I wrote a prototype for my software in Python as a desktop client-server program, but I want to do the real version as a web service. (I have seen the light? much better deployment and reduced cost) Trouble is, I don't know web development.</p>
  
  <p>I already did something webdev-ish: I have a page with a form on it, that when submitted Apache will run my Python script, which will do some server-side tasks and then send the result on a new page back to the user. Its a very simple tool (doesn't use any DB or framework), but I suppose that's the basic idea of web-based services... I think. To me that was a workaround, I did not realize it is webdev-ish.</p>
  
  <p>So I have a basic idea of how it works, and about 8 years of programming behind me, but I need to learn:  </p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>How to design web sites (XHTML and CSS?)</li>
  <li>Javascript and AJAX</li>
  <li>More advanced features of databases (Postgresql)</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>I'm thinking Python/Django is a safe bet.</p>
  
  <p>Any suggestions on where to start? I'm not the type who has the patience to read a book; I would rather jump in and build something simple first, then bigger and bigger stuff, but I can't seem to get my head around learning web design - I still format everything with tables.</p>
  
  <p>Cheers and thanks</p>