Good stuff really helped me out tyty

sdturner02

Did you go through that entire book? It's 1008 pages!

I've got some Python experience from school and MATLAB looking to start an online store. Would it be worthwhile to learn and build from scratch or go with the countless e-commerce solution sites that have it all built in one?

Oh no, definitely did not work through the whole thing.

The book is setup with a few chapters that introduce you to the basic concepts of PHP and MySQL. From that you'll build a pretty good base knowledge of the main principles like how to write simple programs, store and retrieve data from databases, etc.

The rest of the book covers specific topics that you may encounter at some point, like how to create PDF files with PHP, security, how to build a shopping cart, etc. They build on the intro and are really more helpful as a reference tool. No need to take them in order.

For me, the real value was in the intro chapters. Once you get the basics down, the only challenge is creatively applying them to whatever problem you're trying to solve.

As far as your second question, are you trying to decide if you should learn to code and create the site yourself or pay to have it built? Am I reading that right?

^ Basically yes.

I want to create an online store and saw services like volusion at only 20 a month with an extremely easy to use interface.

Thanks for the recommendation, I've been working through the book actually and learning quite a bit. But it seems like it would take forever to get a working product out rather than just paying 20 a month for a built in template/shopping cart/design

Yeah, I'd say you're right. I'd definitely encourage you to keep learning to code, but you can get a good looking, functioning store up and going really quickly if you do that. No need to reinvent the wheel if it's something really standard like that.

I don't know much about Volusion, but I just checked out their site and they look pretty legit.

Another one I've heard good things about is Shopify. I've never used them personally (actually, I've never run an online store), but the example stores on their site and that I've seen are very impressive looking.

Thanks sdturner for the reply and the link.

I've yet to hear of shopify, just checked it out and it looks really nice, bonus being in Canada as well.

Guess I might just go with this and work out the programming on the side. Not enough hours in a day to work full time, put 100k hands a month, learn programming and even have a social life

This is far from true in a lot of cases. I do web development and I never have to take my job with me if I don't want to. We have people to maintain the website and be on call if something goes down. If something is broken I can't fix it immediately anyway - I have to go through a nightly build process. So there's no need to call me at midnight. Large companies generally will be less demanding in this regard than a startup, especially if the startup is running a production site.

Personally I love programming. I get paid to solve logic puzzles all day, and when I'm busy the day goes by in an instant. Also it's a lot of fun to be the hero and deliver some awesome piece of functionality or solve some intractable problem.

As far as lifestyle, this job is in high enough demand that no one has to work for a sweatshop if they don't want to. If I work more than 8 hours/day it's because I'm working on something that I want to get right. No one expects me to work overtime except maybe if the project is way behind or something. Maybe that first job out of college will suck, but that's what first jobs are all about. I worked in mail rooms and a popcorn factory right out of college. Any programming job beats that.

As far as advice for OP, take a few classes, think of some project to do on your own - maybe a website or iphone app. Nothing too ambitious. Work through that, pad your resume with it, and you if you demonstrate that you're clever you may just land a job. I had zero experience in web programming except some little site I had made with Java Servlets, and landed a decent job that launched me into a nice career.

To be honest, there are lots of $100k jobs in software development where you work 9-5 and are never on call and have low stress. This is mostly because $100k is currently a low salary for a good developer. Even at $150k, it doesn't need to be horrible - yes, you'll probably need to work a bit more than 40 hours a week, but rarely over 50 unless its crunch time. Almost no one can write good code working 60-70 hours a week forever - it's extremely mentally taxing.

I can vouch for much of what suzzer and sharpie have said, although salaries are going to vary greatly based on location. Silicon valley will be a lot higher for obvious reasons (I think that's where sharpie is based out of). But there are tons of development jobs where they are super low stress with normal housrs (and even more flexible than 9-5) with very little extra work. Obviously exceptions exist, and a project falling behind with a tight deadline will make for extra hours, but even then, it might not even be more than 50 hours unless you want to do more.

I do disagree with the 60-70 hours limit, it will vary a lot on the person, but I certainly think I could exceed 100 hours of quality coding if I didn't have to worry about other responsibilities and was compensated for it.

And when I do need to do anything on the weekend, it's super easy to just remote in and fix it or look at something, and be done with it. I have been called on vacations but I am in a somewhat unique position in that no one is really trained to do what I work on, so when I leave I need to be ready for a call during critical times. But even that was just talking to a guy while I was driving and guiding him to figure it out.

Startups are going to be a totally different experience, though.

Right now, I'm working on a new product with a really small team that has been a complete blast to work on. I'll put in extra hours on weekend just for fun since I enjoy innovating and being able to design something new. We work on fresh stuff every month with very little time for anything boring, and I try to volunteer for the most challenging parts of the project so it's been very interesting. I still have a small role with the old team I worked with, so that takes up time, too. When I'm done working and have a break from the kids, I'll work on side projects that typically involve coding. I try to make them something I'm interested in or learning. I've made a college football computer ranking algorithm website which has been fun and given me a lot of experience. I've toyed with Android App games. All have been great learning experiences and have helped me out with my job.

It's the design aspect that I really enjoy and it's tough to get out of my mind. But if you don't enjoy it, I can see how it would make you miserable.

lol java,
java, lol

as someone who has hired a hell a lot of programmers to do real world tasks, do not use this language.

its main pro is:
cross platform: sure, if you spend a ****ton of time adjusting your code.

It's slow as ****, it needs an environment, that's not always installed and is really really hard to optimize.

just stay away from java.


i'd recommend python, because I just like its philosophy. javascript and php are good also.

people preaching C/C++ as first language are hardcore programmers from the past. They were taught c++ fist and think that is the way to go. Legacy. It's just the old ways.

If you don't need hardcore multithreading and stuff like that(99% you dont) go for higher level language.

And remember that programming is like relligion. Everyone has one and everyone argues that theirs is the best.


Also, I've seen those kind of threads opened a lot. 99,99% of the time the OP doesn't learn to code. Don't be one of those people. Just go and pick one, it's not going to be your last one for sure, so what's the big deal?

You better tell Google about this ASAP considering they run a large portion of their business on Java.

Oh and:


yes to python and javascript. no to php unless you really want to work for facebook or make a crappy website.

yep, learning c/c++ first is probably the biggest mistake you can make. There's a reason they don't teach these languages in intro CS classes anymore.

more like every argues that others are crappy (see your java rant).

if you try to learn C/C++ it may very well be the last language you learn after you burn out. Also, there are very few jobs you can get with JUST python or php experience.

IMO if your goal is to work on your own project, then learn whatever language you want (pretty much anything can be done in any language, and the language you choose is not going to make or break your product. Even facebook is still using PHP and MySQL which is a joke if they were to start over from scratch knowing they would have to scale to 1 billion users). If your goal is to get a comfy job at a big tech company, learn an object oriented language like Java (e.g. Google and Amazon) or C# (Microsoft, a lot of other big companies), plus once you know either learning javascript and python will be a breeze (can't always say the same about the inverse). If you really want to work on a startup, then its a toss up between Ruby, Python, Java, and Objective-C ... should figure out what startup you want to join and see what they use.

google uses java for just android.

python however is very used within the google on every level, because its ease of use and it is one of the best language for scraping and making automated bots.

no

python is probably the 4th most common language used at Google. C++ and Java dominate development efforts at Google, with javascript following shortly behind (which makes sense for a company that develops so many web applications).

python powers something like 70% of their search engine. And that is a fact, not an opinion or "read somewhere" thing. The rest is C++ and javascript(for frontend UIs)

I'm not a coder, but i use a lot of software devs. If you want to do web development - javascript, python and php are the things you should focus on right now. Oh, and don't fall for that ruby crap. It's hipster's thing.


Like I said, arguing for programming is like arguing for music/relligion/politics - it's pointless. Everyone does what works for himself.

I like lynda.com's stuff, real professional and they have basic stuff for newbs like me.