[gareth.nic]

After dropping out of varsity for various reasons, I decided to leave the desktop behind and focus more on web development.

At the moment I'm learning PHP then Javascript. I'm yet to refresh my HTML knowledge, but I'd do that when I cover HTML5.

My question is: What other technologies should I learn/master when it comes to web development?

I really want to focus on back end development.

[Macjohn]

PHP it will be a good server side language, and why not learn somethign like MySQL? save your data, makes you(website) more dynamically!
Javascript, Ajax and JQuery as a cross-browser! Believe me, you'll find it really usefull!
and to be at the finest HTML try some HTML5, I've been finding it very interesting, but remember, always try your projects in differente browsers! CSS is not the only thing that gives problems when changing browsers!

[Slice]

If you are currently in the starting out stages of php, make sure you look at PDO or mysqli. Old mysql_ functions are depreciated, yet still used in hundreds of web tutorials on google.

Since php 5 we have the functionality of objects.

From looking around job listings in my area, one of their main requirements for PHP developers is a solid grasp of OOP. Here is a good starting point from mac.

Also read up on code seperation. If you're more interested in becoming a backend developer then you won't be involved too much with the html/design side; so keeping them separated will allow a designer to work on the sites look without messing up any of your code.

[Lemur]

As a developer you still need to know the basics of web design to have a functional skeleton of your site at the least.

The order in which you should learn is as follows:
HTML
CSS
Javascript
jQuery/other toolkit
PHP
SQL

Do not underrate the necessity of HTML and CSS, it will cost you in the long run.

As far as cross browser compatibility is concerned, a majority of gotchas in design are attributed towards Internet Explorer. Always develop your sites using Firefox or Chrome, it will make for far less headaches. Using standards compliant code will help to reduce the chances of an error developing in other browsers.

Make sure to start small and work your way up. The last thing you want to do is to try and make a large scale database driven site as your introduction project unless you have some serious skills in other languages to begin with (read: you can actually do that in another language.)

As far as large projects, remember that when cutting down a tree it is just as important to plan and sharpen your axe before you start haphazardly swinging as to just jump right in.

[4D1]

To be perfectly honest the way the Industry is here in the UK it would be advantagous to study one of the big open source applications, like Joomla, Drupal, WordPress... Most of the jobs I see around are working with these frameworks, yes of course you need knowledge of PHP, MySQL, HTML etc but a good understanding of the above frameworks would land you a job pretty quickly...

[gareth.nic]

Thanks guys, definitely gonna have sleepless nights covering all this. 4D1 it's the same here. Though lately their requirements for Wordpress and Joomla have become more and more technical.

I think for me, starting from ground zero basically - I'll have to get some personal projects online, to spice that cv up.

[Lemur]

Never have a sleepless night. Rest, otherwise you'll forget every bit of information that you might have acquired that night. Sleep is a necessity and if you ignore it you will pay for it soon.