Welcome to Web Design and Development – The Right Way! (WDDTRW).
Whether you're taking your first steps into web development, refreshing existing skills, or expanding your knowledge into new technologies, you've come to the right place.
This website accompanies the Web Design and Development – The Right Way! book series, providing exclusive online resources that complement each book and help you get the very best from your learning. Every lesson is designed to teach a practical skill that you can immediately apply to real-world projects, allowing you to build your knowledge one step at a time.
Technology is no longer just for software developers. It underpins almost every industry, every business, and increasingly our everyday lives. Programming, web development and computational thinking are now taught throughout schools because digital skills have become as important as traditional subjects such as mathematics and English.
Whether you dream of becoming a professional developer, building your own websites, creating software for your business, or simply understanding the technology that shapes our world, learning to code is one of the most valuable investments you can make.
Web Design and Development – The Right Way! has been created to make that journey enjoyable, practical and accessible.
Most programming books try to teach everything at once. They often span hundreds of pages, covering topics you may never use while making it difficult to find exactly what you want to learn.
This series takes a different approach.
Each book is intentionally concise, focusing on a single subject or technology in around 100 pages. Rather than working through a huge reference manual, you can choose the books that are relevant to your goals, building your own learning library as your knowledge grows.
The series is expanding continuously, with new titles being released regularly to cover additional technologies and techniques. Every new book is supported by exclusive online content, including:
Instead of buying one enormous book and paying for chapters you'll never read, you invest only in the subjects that matter to you, learning at your own pace and building confidence with every new book.
Each book unlocks its own exclusive online content.
After purchasing a book, you'll be able to authenticate your access using verification terms taken from specific pages within the book. This ensures that the additional lessons and resources remain available exclusively to genuine readers.
The world of software development has changed dramatically over the past few decades.
Today's professional applications are built using frameworks, design patterns and modern development practices that produce software which is secure, scalable, maintainable and easy to extend.
That's why this series introduces you to the tools that professional developers use every day from the very beginning.
Instead of teaching outdated techniques before introducing modern development, you'll quickly begin working with technologies such as the Laravel Framework, one of the world's leading PHP frameworks, together with the principles and practices that employers and professional development teams expect.
The goal isn't simply to teach you a programming language.
It's to teach you how to think like a software developer.
The best way to learn is by building.
Every lesson has a clear purpose and teaches something you can use immediately. As your knowledge grows, each lesson becomes another building block that contributes towards larger, more capable applications.
The accompanying website extends your learning without repeating the contents of the books. As the series continues to grow, you'll find practical examples, troubleshooting guides, reader questions, useful shortcuts, additional techniques and bonus material that help bridge the gap between learning and real-world development.
My name is Garry Owen, and I've been writing software for over 43 years.
My programming journey began at the age of nine on a Commodore VIC-20, a home computer with just 4 KB of RAM. Since then I've witnessed—and been part of—one of the most exciting periods in technological history, from cassette tapes and dial-up internet to cloud computing, enterprise systems and artificial intelligence.
Today I work as a Senior Developer with NHS Wales, helping to develop enterprise-level systems that support healthcare services across Wales. Earlier in my career I also held several senior technical leadership and IT Director-level roles within smaller organisations, giving me experience not only in writing software but also in leading projects, mentoring developers and delivering complete business solutions.
Throughout my career I've worked across a wide range of technologies including PHP, Laravel, JavaScript, C#, .NET, SQL Server, MySQL, HTML, CSS, Microsoft Power Apps, Model-Driven Apps, Dataverse and many others. Alongside software development I've also spent years working with creative technologies including Adobe Photoshop and VEGAS Pro, producing graphics, videos and digital media for commercial projects.
Some systems I've built entirely on my own. Others have formed part of large enterprise development teams. Every project has taught valuable lessons that have influenced the way I approach software design, problem solving and teaching.
Everything in this series is based on practical experience gained from building real systems for real organisations—not simply examples written for a textbook.
My aim is to help you avoid many of the mistakes that developers commonly make, while introducing the techniques and practices that have served me well throughout my career.
Learning to develop software isn't about memorising code—it's about learning how to solve problems, think logically and create something meaningful.
I hope these books, together with the resources on this website, give you the knowledge, confidence and inspiration to do exactly that.
Thank you for choosing Web Design and Development – The Right Way!
Let's start building.