Becoming a programmer

Zola.

I have been doing front end web design for a company for 7 years, but I feel I am hitting the ceiling and don't see where my career path is going with regards progression really. I have friends who did the same degree as me and are feeling the same. The bottom line is I need to earn more money.

I think long term, programming is a much more rewarding job pay wise, and I think I want to do that.

I have a BSc in Multimedia Design, but I am not a programmer at all, I have no training in the likes of Java, C++, Javascript.

I have a mortgage, so I would have to study part time, full time university is out of the question.

Would I need to start at a level like this?

http://www.serc.ac.uk/Courses/Lists/SERCCourses/Course.aspx?ID=3681

Any advice is appreciated.

dcouponzzzz

I'd start with researching the appplication and flexibility of different coding types to decide which one fits your plan. When you know what language you want to speak, put that second behind JavaScript, which apparently is the best starting point for fundamentals.

Use https://www.codecademy.com/ to get started. I wouldn't apply for any certification courses until you've completed a number of programming languages on there so you know what you want.

Zola.

Thanks for your reply, I have dabbled in codeacademy before but I found it a little bit buggy and not the best learning experience for some reason. I will maybe give it another go though.

If you were to suggest a language what would you recommend?

I was leaning toward JS as I know a tiny little bit already and my natural interest is in web technologies from front end design... but others like Java and C++ seem to be in such demand at the moment.

Indo77

If you are a front end person c# and asp.net mvc would seem to be the natural progession. Be prepared though for endless keeping up your skillset. I work in this field and personally wished I'd did something else like a trade. Programming has changed a lot since I started. It's difficult to keep up with everything and you soon find you have become deskilled if you don't keep getting trained up.

Zola.

Funny you should say that - that's exactly how I feel with front end web stuff. The game keeps changing and unless you are constantly challenged you go stale.

ptoner27

I'd think very carefully.

Oddly enough, I began life as a programmer but ended up in multimedia - or more accurately, the PR and marketing side of what is now for me, part multimedia and part social media and web. I can still dabble in coding but what I found was (and this is just me) that I didn't have the very precise discipline that great programmers seem to have where every problem is solved to the finest line of code. With multimedia, I could let my imagination roam and it didn't matter if I 'fudged' it so long as the end result was what my clients were looking for.
I'd be asking myself based on this experience, not what language should I be learning - but what do I intend to do with the language once learned!

That will point you in the right direction and you might find you can even break the learning curve (what with your multimedia background) into bite sized chunks by taking on one small task at a time...

xapprenticex

From experience, be SURE you want to be a programmer because after a while all the fun is drained from it and it can become a literal nightmare you cant wake up from.

Dont do it just for the money, thats for sure.

Indo77

OP I would heed the advice of others on this thread. I personally if was in your situation would not enrol in the course that you have posted since you already have a degree and to be honest the majority of these courses are not up to date with what is really expected in industry. You would be better going down the Microsoft cert route however certs expect you to actually be doing the role.

Is there anyway you could start bringing together bits of programming into your own front end job? For a web page you could make use of JQuery libaries etc. A lot of people seem to accidently become programmers, they fall into it. My personal beef with it is not the coding itself or even the technologies but the endless adapting to change every 5 minutes. If you have a skill like an electrician or a hair dresser it does not change that often etc. Coding you have to conform quickly. If you can - avoid agile and scrum (and burndown charts) like the plague.

WobblyDog

I find that studying in my own time for Microsoft exams is a good and relatively cheap way to motivate myself to learn the all the material in depth. Exam 70-480 (HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript) might be a good place to start. From a programming point of view, the 70-480 book covers core Javascript, jQuery and NodeJS. It's a couple of years out of date, but a good introduction to Javascript.

Javascript is becoming increasingly important, both client-side and server-side, so it's a good place to start programming. If you enjoy it, move on to whatever other languages best fit your career aspirations. C++ is rarely used for web applications, so that's probably not a good place to start, but C#, Java, PHP and Python would all be good next steps.

directdebiter

Agree javascript is becoming more in demand so a good place to start.

stugib

directdebiter wrote: »

Agree javascript is becoming more in demand so a good place to start.

Whilst it might be in demand that doesn't necessarily make it the easiest language to learn if you're new to programming:




Some different arguments:
http://www.itworld.com/article/2693386/why-i-don-t-suggest-javascript-as-a-first-programming-language.html
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8783856/javascript-as-a-first-programming-language
https://generalassemb.ly/blog/learning-to-code-why-you-should-learn-javascript-first/