Time it takes to become fluent with mySQL, PHP, CSS, Javascript, HTML
What is the best way to become fluent in the listed languages?
Would it be better to pick up a book and read from page 1, or just go through online tutorials?
Or taking a class?
how did you guys all get good at programming?
bios would be interesting : )
You can get proficient in that combination in a few months as long as you have a real project and plenty of applicable examples. You get good a programming by programming and studying the work of good programmers.
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." Brian W. Kernighan
And start with semantic HTML and CSS, then add JavaScript, and then PHP and MySQL. Or even mix up the order of the last three, but for sure, start off with HTML and CSS. Also, when you start with JavaScript, try to be unobtrusive all the time. The more you do, the easier it becomes.
Great wit and madness are near allied, and fine a line their bounds divide.
A few classes (or books if that's not practical) on general programming concepts and database theory and practice could carry you a long way in the programming end of things. Once you have a good grounding in the basics, picking up the specifics of a particular programming language is simply a matter of learning its particular syntax and built-in functions.
As far as HTML/CSS, however you go about learning them, try to simultaneously read the applicable sections of the specifications (HTML and CSS), as they are the ultimate references, and learning to use them can save you a lot of confusion amid the varying and contradictory instructions you'll find on the web.
"Please give us a simple answer, so that we don't have to think, because if we think, we might find answers that don't fit the way we want the world to be."
~ Terry Pratchett in Nation
I'm still very much a student at all of this, but my advice:
Study HTML and CSS first. I found those to be the easiest languages. Most people I know don't seem to have a problem with this, but as far as my experience went with PHP and JavaScript, I wasn't able to pick them up at all until I took a class on programming logic at my area's local community college. Just because you can write HTML and CSS doesn't necessarily mean that PHP, JavaScript, and other web programming languages will come as easy to you as HTML and CSS did (again, just my personal experience). Like NogDog said, once you learn the logic of programming concepts, pretty much you'll just have to learn about a language's specific syntax and functions. I would recommend both books and online tutorials, as both have helped me a great deal.
Also, I'm going to tell you something that my college adviser told me when I started that would have saved me a lot of stress while I was studying all of it by myself: "Don't focus so much on remembering the code. You'll never be able to remember all of it, and besides that, you'll always have reference material to look through when you're writing programs or web pages, whether it be reference books or references on the web." When I first started studying HTML, I thought it was all about memorizing HTML markup code. I won't hide the fact that I never got that far with it when I had that train of thought
All of it might seem very intimidating at first (when I started, I was ready to wet my pants), but stick with it. If you have the patience and continue studying, it'll soon be like all of it makes perfect sense
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