Is it possible to self-learn web development from scratch?

Goose · 27 Jun 2012 at 19:04

Apologies if the thread title is a bit vague but the fact is i dont know what i'm talking about.

My situation at the moment is that i'm 30 years old and unemployed with few prospects. To complicate things i suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (a.k.a M.E) and am only able to work non-physical jobs part-time (4-5 hours per day).

Since i have found it impossible to find work (not much part-time admin type roles going and i have no experience) i have been looking in to learn a skill to see if i can forge a career from it. I've always had a interest in computing (got my first PC 18 years ago) but never learnt a specific skill such as programming or networking and the like.

During my daily job searching i see a lot of adverts for PHP and ASP.NET developers and decided to look into them and see whats what. I came across this website that appears to offer pretty decent tutorials with a view to you paying money to earn a certificate.

All i really want to know from you guys is am i barking up the wrong tree? Can someone with absolutely no knowledge of even basic programming or web design/development teach themselves enough to actually get a job? Also, is part-time work for this sort of thing even available?

If anyone can offer any assistance i'd be really grateful. Having turned 30 i'm starting to really worry for my future due to my limitations and the current job climate.

Thanks

paradisiac · 27 Jun 2012 at 19:06

the HTML, Graphics & Programming section would probs be best for this. but yes, a few youtube video tutorials and practice and no reason why you couldn't learn

Vtec9k · 27 Jun 2012 at 19:08

There's a boatload of free tutorials out there and of course plenty of help here in OcUK. I wouldn't go paying for anything at least initially.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=41

sniffy · 27 Jun 2012 at 19:13

Goose said:
All i really want to know from you guys is am i barking up the wrong tree? Can someone with absolutely no knowledge of even basic programming or web design/development teach themselves enough to actually get a job?

Sure you can. Employers don't really care if you have a degree or not in this field, that's coming from someone with a CS degree, you just need to show you can produce high quality work. If you have a cracking portfolio then you have a good shot.

You need to consider how long it will take you to learn the skills (PHP/ASP.NET, Javascript along with some basic HTML/CSS) then produce high quality work either for free or at a very low price so you can show this to potential employers to secure a job. It's time consuming.

Also, is part-time work for this sort of thing even available?

Freelancing is quite popular in this field so you can probably secure work that isn't full-time. Not entirely sure how this works out though.

jsmoke · 27 Jun 2012 at 19:18

Yes most people do, i don't even remember seeing anything other than beginner courses in web dev.

May as well get stuck in and learn html/css. If you need a hand give me a shout.

dirtychinchilla · 27 Jun 2012 at 19:18

I taught myself HTML and CSS to a decent level, then got a couple of commissions for Joomla and Wordpress sites, and just learnt what I needed to. I think there's a lot of potential for going somewhere, but you really need to market yourself somehow (something I completely failed to do) and makre sure you're update to date with current trends ie learning Wordpress, as loads of people are using it nowadays for their blogs. I think you also could do with learning your way around basic graphics, get used to photoshop and make your own site

GravyMonster · 27 Jun 2012 at 19:26

Please do not give W3Schools any money, they are misinformation spreading morons and are not affiliated with the W3C in any way.

http://www.w3fools.com

piggeh · 27 Jun 2012 at 19:33

You can learn from scratch. There are plenty of decent tutorials although the best way I learnt was from a book. However I never had the discipline to stick it through, I started to get to Object oriented coding and then got a full time job in my normal work and it died off after that. But I'd recommend a SAMS teach yourself xxxxxx in 24 hours book anyday.

If you want to do it professionally you need a decent portfolio to really start attracting any decent money, or work on your own templates/functionality which you can sell to niche markets.

Mailman86 · 27 Jun 2012 at 20:05

No amount of books or online tutorials alone will make you a good developer. You really have to get stuck in and try and make something for real. For web stuff I'd have a look through a couple of quick HTML and CSS tutorials first and just try and make a simple static page. You could then use that as some sort of template/layout and start using it with some PHP (Ruby on Rails is really in at the moment and an alternative to PHP however I would advise getting some PHP under your belt first). If you have a clear idea of site you want to make, it would probably be a good idea to learn a PHP framework after you've got a quick grasp of PHP as they can help enforce good practises. If you're not keen on the server side stuff at this stage you could do some JavaScript stuff instead although it's probably best to sort of do them side by side as they are both important.

Don't be put off with all of the things to learn though. There is a lot of crossover between stuff you will want to learn and you'll be picking it up in no time.

I really think the important thing is to have a project on the go as although books have their place, you are going to get bored quickly and you will have forgotten most of what you have read without putting the stuff in to practise (the little follow along tutorials in books don't count!

). If you find you want to do something and you’re not sure how, simply Google for it and you’ll usually come up with a mini tutorial or something.

piggeh · 27 Jun 2012 at 20:28

Mailman86 said:
Ruby on Rails is really in at the moment and an alternative to PHP however I would advise getting some PHP under your belt first

If you're learning, my understanding with programming languages (very happy to be corrected as I am not a coder!) is that the structure is fairly similar on most of them? I was always advised to learn a language that has a massive amount of resource to turn to (like PHP), whereas Ruby on Rails and others probably don't have the same volume of back up resource or online communities if you get stuck?

(not saying they have none, just less, and that it can make it more difficult to seek help/find decent examples etc)

Mailman86 · 27 Jun 2012 at 20:35

piggeh said:
If you're learning, my understanding with programming languages (very happy to be corrected as I am not a coder!) is that the structure is fairly similar on most of them? I was always advised to learn a language that has a massive amount of resource to turn to (like PHP), whereas Ruby on Rails and others probably don't have the same volume of back up resource or online communities if you get stuck?

(not saying they have none, just less, and that it can make it more difficult to seek help/find decent examples etc)

As Goose mentioned wanting to get a job out of all this I thought Ruby on Rails (RoR) was worth a passing mention at least. A lot of people can do PHP whereas not so many can use RoR so might make your CV more attractive to have some experience with that. And yeah you're right. Once you've really got your head around all this programming/scripting malarky with whatever it is you chose first, picking up new languages is really not so bad.

GravyMonster · 27 Jun 2012 at 20:37

There's also less demand for RoR though, so it's swings and roundabouts.

If you do learn PHP, make sure it's Object Oriented, NOT procedural. That will stand you in better stead to move on to other languages.

UK-AL05 · 27 Jun 2012 at 20:37

piggeh said:
If you're learning, my understanding with programming languages (very happy to be corrected as I am not a coder!) is that the structure is fairly similar on most of them? I was always advised to learn a language that has a massive amount of resource to turn to (like PHP), whereas Ruby on Rails and others probably don't have the same volume of back up resource or online communities if you get stuck?

(not saying they have none, just less, and that it can make it more difficult to seek help/find decent examples etc)

Sort of. Functional is quite different from OO, Logic Programming is different from imperative programming. However learning a language within the same paradigm tends to be easy.

PHP comes from a dodgy background, it used to encourage in line logic code(Mixing in html and code) and so forth, now most PHP frameworks avoid these dodgy practises.

I personally prefer a good designed general programming languages like python, or ruby and use web frameworks/libraries to add web functionality.

Goose · 27 Jun 2012 at 20:43

Thanks a lot for the all the info and advice guys.

By the looks of things i need to start off with html and CSS (i'd sort of already figured that out), i just need to find out best to go about learning it. Tutorials and books are all well and good but if i dont use what i learn i tend to forget it just as quickly as i've read it.

The other question i have is about graphics and creativity. I basically have absolutely no creative talent so i worry that if web development relies on creativity and imagination then i'm doomed. Is there any role in web development for someone like me who could (potentially) learn the necessary skills (html, CSS, PHP etc) without having to be a creative genius?

GravyMonster · 27 Jun 2012 at 20:49

Definitely. I can't design for toffee yet manage to scrape a living

You'd be looking more at Web Development than Design in that case, so HTML and CSS are a good start, moving on to database design and at least 1 server-side language. Javascript/jQuery would be a good thing to know too for front-end work.

You would need to at least know how to slice up a design from a PSD though. I believe there's a good tutorial for that on http://www.css-tricks.com

sniffy · 27 Jun 2012 at 20:49

Goose said:
Is there any role in web development for someone like me who could (potentially) learn the necessary skills (html, CSS, PHP etc) without having to be a creative genius?

The two roles (design and development) are usually entirely separate jobs although it's good for a developer to have a thorough understanding of HTML and CSS. You'll need to be creative when doing web development but in a different way to a web designer

Mailman86 · 27 Jun 2012 at 20:56

Depending on your role in the workplace, you might end up working with a dedicated designer so you might not be expected to do something completely from scratch from a design point of view. That said though, like the actual developing side of things, you get a feel for what looks good after a while and it is something that can be learnt. If you are really stuck of inspiration, then have a look at a few sites you like the look of, have a think to yourself what makes them look good and try and do something similar (no copying though

). The great bit with HTML and CSS is that it's very easy to have a look how something is made/styled on any site as when viewing any site you will always download these bits in plain text. This is quite true for JavaScript as well (although it might take a little more effort to work out what's going on). If you wanted to have a look at some real HTML and CSS now, download the Firefox extension Firebug. That will make it about as simple as it will get to see what's going on.

jsmoke · 27 Jun 2012 at 21:01

Your best to learn the coding side of things and search for a graphics partner. Doing both on your own is quite a lot of work. I don't mean a lot of work in the sense of being lazy but the learning curve could be years, a lot of the graphics guys in web design have degrees in multimedia studies.

And this is if your going independent rather than for a specific job.

piggeh · 27 Jun 2012 at 21:11

UK-AL05 said:
Sort of. Functional is quite different from OO, Logic Programming is different from imperative programming. However learning a language within the same paradigm tends to be easy.

PHP comes from a dodgy background, it used to encourage in line logic code and so forth, now most PHP frameworks avoid these dodgy practises.

I personally prefer a good designed general programming languages like python, or ruby and use web frameworks/libraries to add web functionality.

Cheers for the info.

(might give coding another bash at some point)

rsatd · 28 Jun 2012 at 09:33

Short answer is YES, long answer is YEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSS you can.