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How to construct a web developer in twelve months

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Re: How to construct a web developer in twelve months

#21

Post by OstiaAntica »

edw519 wrote: post #19

At first glance, this looks like a nice list. I really have nothing bad to say about anything on it. It's a list of 12 items without much guidance about how important each one is and how much time to spend on each. To put things in perspective, I think that BUILD should be > 90% of your time. I'd like to share my personal experience with OP's list. Please understand that this is not advice , just one programmer's exp…

This will take a lot longer than 12 months. More like 5 years, minimum, to be any good.

Re: How to construct a web developer in twelve months

#22

Post by Tycho »

Read Techcrunch? Why? So you can daydream more lucidly about $40m exits?

From my journey so far, I think the foundation is understanding HTML and CSS and the DOM and basic Javascript interactions. It can take a few months for that stuff to sink in, but then you barely need to think about it going forward, it doesn't clog your thought-process. From there you could do a fair bit of actual coding, leveraging frameworks like jQuery and the various layout and template resources. You will get the hang of cross-browser stuff as you go. The next level is Ajax and server-side stuff, which IMO involves getting past a lot of over-coupling inherent in the technology, so that, again, will take a while to sink in. I suppose understanding databases would be a good idea but could perhaps be put off for a while.

Also I think it really helps to have someone you can meet regularly and quiz about development. It beats endlessly googling for an answer that makes sense from your perspective.

Re: How to construct a web developer in twelve months

#23

Post by philcrissman »

edw519 wrote: post #19

At first glance, this looks like a nice list. I really have nothing bad to say about anything on it. It's a list of 12 items without much guidance about how important each one is and how much time to spend on each. To put things in perspective, I think that BUILD should be > 90% of your time. I'd like to share my personal experience with OP's list. Please understand that this is not advice , just one programmer's exp…

Totally agree. Reading HN, blogs/etc is fine, but the net result is: more time reading == less time doing [whatever].

Play + Build should absolutely be 90% of the activity of a would-be developer. Most of the rest of the list could go away. Research is fine, but really only if you're going to _use_ it.

I do find local meetups beneficial, _particularly_ if you can work yourself up to do a presentation on something. Presenting on a topic is a great way to make yourself learn it better.

++FIND A CUSTOMER: Maybe the best advice ever. Has the additional benefit that unless you completely mess up, you get paid. And if you do mess up so badly that you don't get paid, hopefully you learn something about how not to repeat that.

I have to add (since this is a list for people learning): learn git or mercurial. If you know one, you can pick up the other. I don't really think this is optional.

Re: How to construct a web developer in twelve months

#24

Post by ashconnor »

OstiaAntica wrote: post #21
edw519 wrote: post #19

At first glance, this looks like a nice list. I really have nothing bad to say about anything on it. It's a list of 12 items without much guidance about how important each one is and how much time to spend on each. To put things in perspective, I think that BUILD should be > 90% of your time. I'd like to share my personal experience with OP's list. Please understand that this is not advice , just one programmer's exp…

This will take a lot longer than 12 months. More like 5 years, minimum, to be any good.

Far too many variables to gauge how long it takes a person to become a competent, I see no point in entertaining a figure and it's a useless indicator of a goal that can't be measured.

Re: How to construct a web developer in twelve months

#25

Post by rorrr »

12 months is barely enough to scratch the surface. I look at my code from 10 years ago, and it's absolute crap.

Modern web development is not just knowing one language, it's a bunch of technologies, and many of them seem deceptively simple, while they aren't. Just off the top of my head of what I use as a web developer:

1) HTML (and DOM) and XML

2) CSS

3) Javascript (+jQuery +JSON)

    1,2,3 include

    a) the knowledge of different versions 

    b) browser compatibility issues

    c) how to write it properly and efficiently
4) Different image formats, proper compression. CDNs.

5) Unix shell + apache configuration + deployment

6) Database + SQL

7) Memcached (or alternatives)

8) Various tools like firebug, profilers, http sniffers, etc

Re: How to construct a web developer in twelve months

#26

Post by davidhollander »

Way too "culture" heavy. The only thing important on the list is BUILD, which is 2nd to last and does not include example projects to start building their momentum. If you only have 12 months to become a web developer, I hope all that time is spent building as many different projects as possible and not reading Hacker News.

Also I don't think it's smart to immediately steer them toward MVC framework such as Django or Rails. If you give them web.py or Sinatra off the bat you'll expose them to the fundamentals much quicker and significantly accelerate their learning process. Especially in regards to databases.

Then I would throw asynchronous web development at them. Have them write a simple app on top of an event loop with something like Node.JS or one of the python options (gevent,fapws3,tornado,etc.)

Having said the above, there are more books for Django and Rails if thats their preferred learning format. If there is a time crunch, I would recommend "Django 1.0 Website Development" by Ayman Hourieh. It walks through building a complete social bookmarking app and includes chapters on jQuery and AJAX, instead of focusing exclusively on Django. Which will give them a bit of breadth.

Re: How to construct a web developer in twelve months

#29

Post by blacksmythe » 

  >> READ: Hacker News is a reasonable starting point these days.
In my experience, almost the opposite order is best. I find reading Hacker News very enjoyable, but by far not the best use of time early on. An hour spent programming is 10-100x more valuable than an hour spent reading Hacker News, until you have enough experience to put the information in context. I would suggest:

optional Read "Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years"(http://norvig.com/21-days.html)

1) Learn basic HMTL/CSS

2) Learn Python or Ruby fundamentals (http://learnpythonthehardway.org/index or http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/)

3) Learn Django or Rails

4) Learn jQuery

5) Build a few Django (or Rails) projects

6) Find someone to pay you to build things

7) Use Stack Overflow to help you solve customer problems

8) Spend time you are not busy with customers reading Hacker News, attending local meetings, learning whatever catches your interest.

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