Am I stuck here?

[braska23]

I appreciate the replies beforehand, thanks for taking time to read this as this does not pertain to any specific technical problem. I am a 2nd year college student going for my Associates in Web Development. I feel like I'm learning well and over achieving far above what my other class mates are doing. I have learned my way around Dreamweaver, FLASH, and Photoshop quite well. I consider my design skills to be very top notch for how long I've been working around Photoshop now. Am I stuck here though? I have these great design skills and I know my way around the simple parts of flash such as motion tweening, filters, etc... but coding actionscript myself? I'm lost! I've tried to cram code down my throat thinking it will soon pop out at me and I will all of a sudden understand it, but I can't! I feel like having the most beautiful, eye-catching, user-friendly site will be easy for me and my advertising artistic eye. But the fact remains, I need to know databases, and how to write code for what employers / businesses are looking for today. So the big question I have is, am I stuck here? I would really like some feedback from some Web Dev veterans and if they struggled the same way I am or if I'm probably just going to have to settle for Photoshop skills and other programs & tutorials to do the work for me for a long long time. I will take any advice you have that you did to learn what you did, because I am very very serious about this field and spend most of my free time in it. Whether it was a specific book you read, or a specific technique you used to get yourself where you're at now, I'd really appreciate your responses to this. Thanks in advance!

[ryanbutler]

I wouldn't say you're stuck but you might have to stick with applying for jobs that are looking more for graphic designers. If you're trying to learn code and it isn't sticking then chances are it won't. Some people just aren't programmers. I've been coding for 5 years now and still consider myself intermediate at times. I taught myself Flash and actionscript and it took 2 years to know half way what I was doing. I'm still learning CSS (advanced stuff), PHP and other server-side languages.

Keep your spirits up, keep learning and you should be ok.

[Scriptage]

Action Script can be tricky at times and it's probably not the best programming language to start you off learning.
Try playing around with Javascript, head over to javascript.internet.com and look at some of the simpler programs on there. Javascript is a fairly flexible language and as such will give you an insight into how more complex languages work without being bogged down with the extra semantics.

If you still find yourself unable to comprehend programming try writing in Pseudo-code: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudocode and then translating.

As far as databases are concerned then you definitely need to learn normalisation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization

Don't give up, it's all pretty simple in the end; if you can speak a language then you can program.

Regards

Carl

[dtm32236]

JavaScript is probably where you want to start. Try to learn as much JS as possible, then if you decide to in the future, try to learn PHP and mySQL. When you feel comfortable with any of these languages, maybe you can go back and try to teach yourself ActionScript. But, I think that as a web developer, JavaScript, PHP and SQL are the most important to learn.

[braska23]

Thank you guys for your replies, they are much appreciated and helpful!