[thelist] how did you learn?

[Mattias Thorslund]

Took a full semester of computer science in college, learning basic 
programming skills with Pascal and such. That wasn't my major, though - 
I have a Geography degree.

Later, I got a job where my duties sort of evolved into programming and 
web development.  Never took a class in web design or ASP/PHP 
programming - I learned on the job, first by trying to understand my 
co-workers' code.

Elizabeth Castro's "HTML for the World Wide Web" (Visual Quickstart 
Guide from Peachpit Press) is what I started with in terms of HTML.  All 
the basics, clearly and concisely explained and illustrated. I'd 
recommend it as the "first book in HTML" to anyone.  Six years later, 
it's still my only book on HTML itself, actually.

I'd have to mention that I'm not primarily a web designer but a web 
applications developer. I do PHP/database stuff and let the more 
artistic people design the layouts :-)

-Mattias


Paul Bennett wrote:

>OK, I have a question for all those developers out there who
>didn't spend 3 years at university / college to gain
>professional web development skills.
>
>How did you first begin your learning? Did you pick up a book?
>Go to online forums? Ask a friend? Take a short course? 
>
>The reason I ask is that I am considering developing a training
>product and want to see if it is at least viable before sinking
>countless hours into it :)
>
>I took the 'short course' option, although it was 9 months and a
>bit more focussed on sys admin stuff than I needed. (I still
>have dreaded memories about setting up and configuring NT
>server)
>
>Feel free to answer off-list if you like.
>
>Many thanks,
>Paul Bennett
>
>
>
>		
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