24 ways, 2014 edition

Each year, a team of experts from the web community put together an advent calendar of posts about the web. This year, it kicks off with an overview of what it takes to build a website.

If you’ve been out of the web development game for a while (as I have), it’s a useful refresher to see the state of play, and to think more broadly about the nature of web projects. 

You probably already have an appreciation for the idea that a web project doesn’t exist in a vacuum, that a website combines design, content and technology, but it also has a lifecycle that doesn’t culminate with the launch of the site, and it exists amidst a range of business processes, and lives in an ecosystem of interactions with different people and technologies.

If you’re at all interested in improving the depth of your understanding of the web, read what it takes to build a website, and consider bookmarking the entire series.