web dev books

AHarvey

AHarvey

AHarvey

Soldato
Joined
6 Mar 2008
Posts
10,079
Location
Stoke area
Hi all,

General title alert I know but I could do with some advice.

Some may have seen my post in GD about rash decisions in which I walked away from a 6.5 year job with a leading online gambling company purely because I got fed up with the middle management. Worst part was, 2nd kid due end of Feb, mortgage and no other job to go to.

Well, I've a interview next week for a local web development company that specialises in Magento development. I've passed the online exams they sent for general knowledge, HTML, PHP and Javascript but it really outlined to me how little I know overall.

I need help prepping for the interview. I need suggestions on books or online resources that will give me a better understanding of the basics of each language and move into the intermediate levels too. Codeacademy was great for the very basics but I feel I am missing out somewhere.

Thanks in advance :)
 
I don't know what kind of advice you're looking for to be honest... you want recommendations for a few books which will give you enough knowledge to succeed in a web development interview, but you don't have a background in development? I mean, what's the timeframe here? Reading books isn't going to give you much help at this point - you need to search online for development tutorials and do as many as possible. You say you're going for a Magento developer job - have you ever used the product? Might be a good idea to do that, if not...
 
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Thanks for the links peter :)

AJK, It's a junior role within the company, they will teach Magento to me :) I have built a few sites etc in the past but I'm just looking at cementing the basics and I can sit with a good book and read over it while I am away from my PC, then use online stuff when working with my PC :)
 
If it's a Magento development job, then get up to speed with that, as they are going to be looking for someone that really knows that product well.

Have you installed a test version of Magento to tinker with? Magento Community Edition is a free download.

I would get up to speed with Magento, e.g. learn how extensions are installed, what extensions there are, how to modify core code etc etc.

Rgds
 
radderfire said:
If it's a Magento development job, then get up to speed with that, as they are going to be looking for someone that really knows that product well.

Have you installed a test version of Magento to tinker with? Magento Community Edition is a free download.

I would get up to speed with Magento, e.g. learn how extensions are installed, what extensions there are, how to modify core code etc etc.

Rgds
Click to expand...

That's on my list to do this weekend. Got some material to read through, videos to watch etc.

radderfire said:
Did your previous job involve web development?
Click to expand...

Not directly, I set up a a few things internally from custom pages, forums, wordpress, wiki's etc.
 
They're likely to be looking for someone with good problem solving skills, so think how you can demonstrate that.

Also, enthusiasm is important. Ecommerce is not that easy, it's quite technically demanding, so you have to be happy doing that all day, and dealing with customer problems promptly.

General interest in computer science will help, these two blogs are good:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/

http://blog.codinghorror.com/

Rgds
 
When it comes to the basics it doesn't really matter, there is tons of free and perfectly fine learning material to choose from.

Once you start getting the hang of the basics I'd get yourself a copy of 'The Pragmatic Programmer' - Don't be put off by the 1999 publish date, i assure you, this book is one of the greatest of all time programming books. After that 'PHP Objects, Patterns, and Practices' and 'Clean Code' is a pretty good path to take.
 
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