[tlmsolutions]

Hi all,

Happy new year and hope you all enjoyed your celebrations!


This year i'm going to learn learn learn, all in the aim of doing various things on the world wide web - but ultimately, im going to be making an online game

What i need to know, is what sort of time frames do you think would be necessary to set aside to learn each of the below languages. I want to know it all....and im going to learn it all.....but just want an idea from you lovely people

• HTML
  
• CSS
  
• SQL
  
• Javascript
  
• ASP
  
• PHP

Theres gonna be more....but i wanna get a feel for time scales on each of these. I know practise makes perfect too and it will help if time is of no constraint, but what d'ya reckon?

Thanks in advance,

TLM Solutions

[WBC]

Impossible to say a time scale, we don't know how you'll be learning them or how quickly you'll learn.


Are you sure you want to learn all of those? What do you want to achieve by doing that? Where do you see yourself career wise after learning those.

[oakleaves]

tlmsolutions, on 03 January 2012 - 02:34 PM, said:

This year i'm going to learn learn learn...

That's good then. One thing for sure in this business, the learning aspect never ends.

[brightonmike]

To a comprehensive level I would say about 4-5 years, at pretty much full time.

I first started learning HTML about 18 months ago and I'd say I only got 100% comfortable with it 6 months ago. So that's a year, and that's the easiest language of them all.

I think you're trying to do too much. I would suggest you either learn back end or front end. And if you learn back end, most people learn either PHP or ASP, very rarely both.

Whatever you think you're capable of, if you spend 12 months learning both PHP and ASP, you'll never be as good as somebody who learned just one. Same goes for front end and back end.

[BlueDreamer]

All I can say is that it takes a relatively short time to learn, but a lifetime to master

[tlmsolutions]

Hahaha i was kind of expecting some of those responses - i should really have said, "I already know a great deal about HTML/CSS....so they are not that important as i know enough about them".....but the others?? Well.....

[Pedro]

Checkout http://lynda.com or http://teamtreehouse.com/
I find it easier to learn from videos than from books.

[tlmsolutions]

Pedro - good suggestion. I will certainly look at them

Are they free?

[LiamRooney]

Whatever you end up learning, check out this website I found recently. It taught me the basics of HTML and CSS, but also caters for all sorts of programming languages so check through the tutorial section. I imagine there's something there for you.

thenewboston.org

This post has been edited by LiamRooney: 03 January 2012 - 08:43 PM

[NickTheGreat]

www.w3schools.com is AWESOME for learning Html, css, javascript, php/asp and etc...
If you're going to make a game, you could use flash(check out the shootorial lessons on Kongregate)... or if you're going for a game like "hobo wars" you should prolly learn javascript and PHP

[Samus]

I started the web dev thing when I was 16 and i've just turned 18 now.

Within those 2 years, i've learnt (by myself) HTML, CSS, JS (jQuery), SQL, PHP & a few other necessities up to a point where I rarely need to go back and check references or bother people with questions.

Most of my time spent learning was while I was still in secondary school/college, so I didn't always have much time on me, but I made use of whatever time I had on a computer. Watching tutorials, modifying existing scripts, stealing templates & modifying them (almost got sued once. ) and just offering my knowledge to where ever it fit (school admin, church admin ect)

So i'd say its doable to get properly fit in within a year, if you have the time really. It'll be easier for you because you already have a goal to work towards.

But as someone else said, choose one language and hold on to it.

Use as much tutorials/videos/communities as you can.

w3schools.com
tizag.com
net.tutsplus.com
phpfreaks.com
and even this very forum are all good places to learn and expand your knowledge.

Hope I helped!

[D.Schuster]

tlmsolutions, on 03 January 2012 - 02:34 PM, said:

but ultimately, im going to be making an online game

ONE does not simply BUILD and on-line game!


meme jokes aside, this is true, you would need a team, I mean what kind of online game are you aiming at? Facebook flash type game or MMO?

does not matter really, both would require you to have a team


also I see no flash on that list so you plan on making a game with javascript?

add Java and python to your list at minimum

This post has been edited by D.Schuster: 04 January 2012 - 09:39 AM

[tlmsolutions]

"ONE does not simply BUILD and on-line game!"

I beg to differ. A friend of mine has succesfully built an online game alone, and it has over 6,000 users and receives around 350,000 website hits a week

[brightonmike]

tlmsolutions, on 04 January 2012 - 03:26 PM, said:

"ONE does not simply BUILD and on-line game!"

I beg to differ. A friend of mine has succesfully built an online game alone, and it has over 6,000 users and receives around 350,000 website hits a week

His comment was tongue in cheek I believe.

So his site gets 1.4million hits a month? Link?

[RobbieD90]

brightonmike, on 04 January 2012 - 03:51 PM, said:

His comment was tongue in cheek I believe.

So his site gets 1.4million hits a month? Link?

I'm a friend of Mark Zuckerberg (on facebook at least) and he gets loads more hits than that! And he has millions of users....... everyday.

[kanger]

I've definitely found that my learning reached a plateau after learning CSS and HTML....I've tried learning PHP, Javascript and SQL, but only ever got so far....but your post has inspired me and I'm going to try and learn Javascript, then PHP this year!

Think learning goes in fits and bursts....

good luck with it all, let us know how long it takes

[tlmsolutions]

Brightonmike - im not sure its quite that many, my comment was rather tongue in cheek too the website is an online game i play. Its a football management simulation, and its very basic but very addictive. Been playing it for years. Has a very active community

Kanger - Same here. I smashed HTML and CSS a couple of years ago and thought, lets move on to Javascript and SQL....but stopped! I now am determined more than ever to learn some new stuff and start getting some knowledge, there has to be some space in my head for it haha

[brightonmike]

tlmsolutions, on 04 January 2012 - 04:46 PM, said:

Brightonmike - im not sure its quite that many, my comment was rather tongue in cheek too the website is an online game i play. Its a football management simulation, and its very basic but very addictive. Been playing it for years. Has a very active community

Kanger - Same here. I smashed HTML and CSS a couple of years ago and thought, lets move on to Javascript and SQL....but stopped! I now am determined more than ever to learn some new stuff and start getting some knowledge, there has to be some space in my head for it haha

Slow down.

Have you really smashed HTML and CSS? I extremely doubt it. I don't doubt you can code using them, but that's a completely different ball game. I started properly learning HTML 2 years ago and there's still times now where I discover something new or make my code better.

You seem a bit all over the place. You want to learn everything, you want to cram it all in, and in a short space of time.

It doesn't work like that. To make a successful career in this industry you need focus, and really you need to have a specific, targeted skillset.

Nobody will hire you for being OK at everything. They will hire you if you're very good at front end code, but you won't be if you're spending half your time learning back end code too.

Why would anyone hire a young developer who can code OK in ASP and PHP? They won't, they will hire the young developer who is able to code brilliantly in PHP (or whatever they need).

You can't be brilliant at all of that in a couple of years. You'll end up just being OK. If you want to be really good, concentrate your efforts on one specific area.

That's not to say you shouldn't have an understanding of everything. I've done little bits of everything. But I've not tried to learn it all comprehensively, my core focus has been on one area.

Also, be very careful bandying around numbers. I'm not dismissing your friends site, I'm sure it's great, but walking around claiming it gets 1.4 million hits a month is only ever going to get you called out.

[tlmsolutions]

Brightonmike - Thanks for the advice. Just out of curiosity, what is your specific skillset? I know what you mean, i do want to 'know it all' and it is probably impossible to know every single thing about any language.

When i say i smashed HTML and CSS, i meant i smashed the courses for learning them. Whenever i develop now, i always refer back to something in a text book/online as its quite difficult to remember every single thing - but i pretty much have those languages at a level where im comfortable with them

Also, another curious question : What do you do for a job? The reason i ask is that, i believe to become really good at something like web development, it takes loads of practise....and if you had a job doing web development, you'de surely pick up lot's along the way

[brightonmike]

I'm a designer and a front-end developer, full-time employed. I do learn bits of PHP and other stuff, but I'm nowhere near competent on them. I couldn't write my own CMS for example.

To be honest you never stop learning. I'd say I've learned more whilst having my job than I did before, but you do need to be pretty good to get a job in it in the first place obviously.

[mattds]

brightonmike, on 04 January 2012 - 09:13 PM, said:

I'm a designer and a front-end developer, full-time employed. I do learn bits of PHP and other stuff, but I'm nowhere near competent on them. I couldn't write my own CMS for example.

To be honest you never stop learning. I'd say I've learned more whilst having my job than I did before, but you do need to be pretty good to get a job in it in the first place obviously.

I totally agree with you. working as a web designer, even part time increased my skills massively especially reading and re-working code that was written by someone else.

I also tend to learn better when I've got to get a project done or re-work something that I'm not familiar with. So maybe put some pressure on yourself and targeting a language work be good