Taking courses in programming / web design / etc?

[Ads_172]

Hi all,

A bit of a random one this but hopefully a bit of variety in here for a Saturday afternoon!

I've always enjoyed pottering around with computers and did a bit of HTML stuff back when websites were still in their infancy. Then I grew up, got a career, house, wife and kid and haven't thought about it again.

As I hit a mini-mid life crisis and realise I don't want to do my current job forever, I fancy training in something new. So, what better than rediscovering website design in some way, shape or form?!? If nothing else, it'll be an interesting hobby for me.

What's the best way to go about finding out what's out there? I don't really have a clue where to start... there's plenty of geeks like me on here so seemed as good a place as any.

 

[Revels]

You can learn the basics from tutorials online. I prefer books. As if I have a tab open to look at something, then I end up on here/Twitter etc.

The 'Sams - Teach yourself in 24hours' books are very good.

 

[jenic]

Udacity is pretty good, courses are free and just go through them at your own pace.

http://www.udacity.com/courses

 

[Jon.G]

Firstly, I'd think about what you want to do. Possibly which interests you more. Programming and Web Design are two quite different things. Web Design is well, designing layouts and talking about the type of functionality that is implemented within the website. Where as a Programmer/Developer role would be working on how websites work and building them. Last year I graduated from a Multimedia and Website Development course, where I went though many different types of work from video editing to sound recording to photo editing to shell programming. This IMO gave me an insight into everything and I choose what I enjoyed/was most capable of doing as a career path. I'm now a Jr PHP Developer for a small company who work with some big clients.

If you want to learn yourself, maybe view some websites such as W3Schools. However what I personally find is best is going looking at MANY other websites, looking at their functionality and trying to replicate it or better it by using google as a source.

Some web designers who don't understand about coding will design for print. Which is bad, it makes building websites VERY difficult and 8/10 can look poor for the end user. So you would have to consider design restraints etc, look at 980px grid system and responsive design's etc.

Web developers on the other hand, well there are loads of areas that you can go into with regards to languages. I personally do HTML, CSS, PHP, jQuery/JavaScript, SQL and C++ (which isn't part of my job), however there are other languages such as XML, Visual Basic, .NET, loads of frameworks, Java, Flash/ActionScript. There are LOADS of areas you can go into, so its hard to advise as to what to look for. Are there any types of websites you like, that you would want to be able to do yourself?

What you'll also find is you'll never (unless you freelance) find a job that has front-end design and back-end programming. If you do, it'll be basic and both design and programming would be minimal IMO.

Hope that helps you a little.

 

[The Fatty]

As jon says, programming and web design are 2 very differnt ball games...

 

[Mr Pants]

Jon has pretty much hit the nail on the head.

I started off by teaching myself HTML / CSS. This was reading some tutorials online really, then applying them by building a website from scratch. I'd start off with that really. I think they are fairly simply languages but a perfect starting block.

Then you can look at more advanced languages like PHP. I really need to do PHP myself, always thought about it but never really got properly stuck in to it.

 

[Jon.G]

PHP is a doddle if you've done any programming before as you can apple the same logic very easily. Ie loops, variables and functions.

 

[The Fatty]

any programming is a doodle once you grasp the basic idea of how the logic works; for example, knowning when to use a switch statement instead of a bunch of if statements, knowning when to use foreach loop instead of a while loop, etc...

 

[SharkyUK]

Hi mate,

Fair play for wanting to learn something new - and hopefully something you'll find interesting. I won't re-iterate what the guys have already said as they're spot-on with their comments but I will add a few things of my own that are worth bearing in mind.

You mention that you don't want to do your current job forever which, to me, suggests you might consider web design and/or programming as a different career choice should you enjoy it. You also mention that you have a house, wife, family. Not wishing to appear blunt but there isn't really that much money to be made in this field when coming into is as a 'newbie'. You may well find that it doesn't offer the financial rewards that your current role offers and, consequently, it might make life a little awkward in terms of supporting the family and enjoying the quality of life you are already accustomed to. Obviously I don't know the in's and out's of your history so this may not be of concern, but it's worth bearing in mind otherwise. Additionally, should you decide to look at this as a career, you're likely going to be competing against - well - people who have already posted above; people who are younger and already have a fair chunk of experience and a better-developed skillset in the design/programming areas...

My advice would be to look into this as a hobby. I'm not knocking your enthusiasm and I hope you go for it and enjoy it... I'm just trying to say that you have to have realistic aims. It's one thing to be able to knock-up a simple website but it's a whole different ball game to develop something commercially, something efficient, something secure. It takes a lot of hard work, experience and learning from mistakes! LOL! But it can be good fun.

 

[Ads_172]

Cheers guys, yeah I don't really have any plans to chance career drastically, I just fancy learning something new that interests me!

From the sounds of it, it's probably more a programming angle that I want to learn, although would like to then use my leanings to create 'something' of my own afterwards!

Very vague, but that's as far as I've worked out so far!

 

[Jon.G]

Sharky has made a very good point there about salarys and competing with people with experience.