Learning To Code – Part Two March 30th, 2009
My last post on learning to code generated a few requests (mostly on Twitter, but thanks for the comments guys) about what book I bought, and how I am going about this. I suppose the first thing I need to expose is my coding background, such that it is: I played with C++ for a month four years ago, and I work at a webdev company, so I am always surrounded by developers. You pick some things up.
That said, I know squat. Even my HTML is shaky, so I am going into this babe-in-the-woods. Everyone starts from scratch sometime, this is my time I suppose. I am only doing this by forcing myself too. I generally work with developers, forgoing all the development. But, I realized that it is hard to talk to developers when you cannot even call a function. They patiently explain what is happening, and you patiently get lost. If I am going to keep working in the internet sector, I need to be able to speak its language, code.
I selected PHP because it seems to be a simple language that we always use. We pay less for PHP developers than ActionScript, so I assume that it is easier. Simple sounds good to start. I purchased a book called “PHP5, Apache, MySQL Web Development,” by “Programmers to Programmers.” You can grab a copy from them here. So far I really enjoy their style and candor. Simple, and to the point.
Day one was a debacle for me, however. I spent several hours trying to get Apache to work on my main Vista box to no avail. Eventually, my friend had to build me a subdomain on this site (hosted by MediaTemple) to play with. It works so far, but I really want to get my own sandbox Apache/MySQL/PHP environment to work with. That will happen soon. I have no great tips to share right now, as I am just starting out, but I promise to keep you all posted as I progress. Life is too short to be bass-awkwards the whole time.
Let’s do this.
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March 30th, 2009 at 6:30 am
Great stuff, Alex! I’m going to have a look at some of the lessons over on W3Schools tonight, after everyone else in the house has gone to bed. I’m thinking I’ll need the peace and quiet!