Articles in the development environment setup category cover both server and client sides. Sometimes server and client setup can happen on the same machine.
On the server side, you need to set up a basic Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl development environment and install those useful Perl packages, especially Mason, the powerful template management system. If you use PHP, then you can also install those useful PHP extensions and packages for web site development.
On the client side, development and testing with Firefox is strongly recommended. You can install those Firefox extensions useful for daily browsing and development. We also suggest you switch to the more ergonomically friendly Dvorak keyboard layout if you spend a lot of time working with keyboard.
For web site development, you will often need to validate your HTML pages with the Web standards. You can set up your own local W3C XML/HTML file validator to have complete control of the validator service so that you don't need to expose your internal web site and pages to the outside world.
List of articles on setup
- Create a local LAMP development environment -- part one
- Useful Perl packages for web site development
- Set up HTML::Mason, the Perl-based template management system
- Useful PHP extensions and packages for web site development
- Useful Firefox extensions
- Switch to the more ergonomic Dvorak keyboard
- Set up your own local W3C XML/HTML file validator
- Set up a comfortable Linux/Unix environment for development