How to Start?

[seekup]

I want to take a course, buy some software, whatever i need to start.
I want to know the best way to start.
I want to start as easy as possible but not something that does everything for me that limits what i can do.
I have so many ideas of things i want to do, but need someone with some time for occasional questions and guidance how to get up and running.
Thanks,
Jeff
[mod: no contact info]

[Fang]

What is your goal? The type of work you want to do?

[starheartbeam]

That all really depends on what you want to do.
For web HTML is a good place to start and is really not hard at all.
Other then that if you want to program I would say start with Java. Lots of free stuff to get started and you can do so much with Java and so many compaies use Java.
Java is where I would start. Not to hard to gets you started to go to wherever you want to go.

For anything else I would need to know what you want to do.
Happy code writting!

[Shorts]

HTML is where I started, then progressed to perl. PHP was the next step after that. In between learned CSS and now using JS a lot.

If you are looking for web only, would definitely recommend HTML\XHTML standards and backend in PHP. To find a server not supporting PHP is extremely rare.

Also, for backend, learn coding in general. Most languages have a lot of similarities. Going from perl to PHP was extremely easy.

In the end personal preference is what will decide what backend language you use (I'm a big fan of scalars, $). Front end though, definitely work on using standards. Will make CSS and JS easier to learn if your HTML\XHTML is correct.

[dtm32236]

Just on the design end of things - I believe that X\HTML is worthless without CSS. They go hand in hand, and you shouldn't know one without the other. That's just my opinion.

I would learn that first. I don't know much about Perl, so I can't comment on that.... but after HTML/CSS, I'd move onto either JavaScript or PHP/MySQL (prob JS first). I also believe that MySQL should always be learned with PHP - they sort of go hand-in-hand.

[Stephen Philbin]

Well if you're an absolute beginner, I'd say it might well be a good idea to not bother with CSS at the same time. Strying to lean the syntax of two things at the same time when someone has no familiarity with any syntax at all would brobably make it more difficult that just learning HTML and then CSS. There's no hard in making bare-bones black and white unstyled pages whilst getting to grips with the basics of HTML. It's not like a beginner is going to be going straight to production for a client is it. CSS should definitely be the next thing after HTML, though. Being able to style a page and make it look nice is one of the big boosts that a beginner will probably need to give them the feeling that they're getting somewhere and hopefully get them to stick with it.

As for what come after that? Well it really could be anything. One of the first things about web development that struck me was that the more you learn more more you realize how moch more there is left to learn.Learning one technology will lead you on to several others and they, in turn, will lead you on to even more and the chain just keeps going.

I did find Javascript to be an excellent grounding for getting started with the basics of programming languages. It made it much easier for me to jump into things like PHP and Java. I knew almost nothing of Python, but I still managed to pull someone's file extraction script for P3T files to bits and replicate it in Java simply from experience of tinkering in other languages over the years.

There's also the graphical side of things to check out, too. You might well find that once you gain familiarity with a decent graphics program that you actually have a tallent for creating graphics.

I would say to have a tinker with lots of things. Just try stuff out and see what you like doing best.

Oh and welcome to the forums. ;)

[dtm32236]

Trying to lean the syntax of two things at the same time when someone has no familiarity with any syntax at all would brobably make it more difficult that just learning HTML and then CSS. There's no hard in making bare-bones black and white unstyled pages whilst getting to grips with the basics of HTML. It's not like a beginner is going to be going straight to production for a client is it.

Very true - good point.

[Dok]

I want to take a course, buy some software, whatever i need to start.You don't have to buy anything to get started. There are lots of great free editors and using a programming language comes at no charge.

Which editor to use is of personal preference. Search the forum for threads about editors - this has been discussed a lot.
I want to know the best way to start.It depends on your current skill level. If you have never programmed before then then you should select an easy language. I don't know all languages but I think PHP is s nice way to start. You can get some work done pretty fast and results are encouraging for learning more.

I would not recommend Java (or C++ or similar) for a beginner. Not that there is anything wrong with those languages - they just require more skill. I would definitely not recommend JavaScript as the language to learn first. To use JavaScript efficiently you will have to know a lot about HTML, CSS, DOM not to mention all the different browsers quirks. Learn to program - then learn JavaScript.
I want to start as easy as possible but not something that does everything for me that limits what i can do.Don't use Dreamweaver or any similar programs which generates the code for you. If you don't write the code yourself you will never learn it thoroughly. I recommend bying a "cookbook" - a programming book with recipies for doing the most simple things. They tend to be very easy to follow and do not get bogged down in intricate computer science details.

I suggest you start out with PHP. You need to learn HTML and CSS as well but those are not really programming languages. They are just a way to structure and present information - you still have to learn it though.

From PHP I would move on to Java to lean Object Oriented Programming. Once you get the hang of that learn C. If you know C you can grasp most other languages without too much difficulty. If you wanna get real geeky then learn assembler. Once you know assembler you will never use it for anything in your lifetime but is does help understanding computers/programming tremendously :)

I have so many ideas of things i want to do, but need someone with some time for occasional questions and guidance how to get up and running.That is why most people are here - to learn and help others :)