and what language should I learn first, tried Udacity but they're computer science intro course didn't really get my interest, it wasn't something I wanted to learn to do(make a web crawler)

you don't get to learn building projects that interest you
you need to understand some basics before you try harder stuff or it will get messy and you'll develop bad habits or just miss out on concepts entirely

Web development has always interested me, so I decided that's what I should do.

I built my foundation from a few college courses. The rest was learned from reading a few books, documentation, Googling for specific details (with my sources as either the documentation for the library or StackOverflow), and just doing it.

Seriously though, just read the documentation. I downloaded the docs of the framework I use the most just so I can reference it for anything I might not know.

Dead wrong imo.

Start out by tinkering around on small things on your own. Find something that's like what you want, copy it, and tweak it until it does what you really want. As you make small changes, you'll be able to start learning from a smaller point. As you work on more and more parts of the project, your understanding will grow. Keep it up and you'll eventually be a master on the whole system.

I'll have to disagree as well. I learned by having a die-hard passion for it, and the patience to learn it. I thought of things I would like to try, and I did them. Sometimes it took days, some took a few weeks... But I always completed them, and later went back for optimization as I learned more.

I have never taken a class, and yet on Friday I will be rolling out some software I began construction back on July 9th to my entire department and being compensated several hundred dollars in addition to my base salary in the process.

I learned how to do it, by loving to do it. Loving the process of debugging, loving the cigarettes smoked trying to decide the best programmatic approach to a theory, and especially loving the moment when your finished with a complete product...

There doesn't have to be a cookie-cutter path, just make your own.



I completely disagree with this as well. Make it yourself. If its too complex? Make a simpler version. My first programs were literally the traditional "Hello World"... followed by InputBox fun... all the more growing as I went until the point I'm at now where trying to think of things to create is the hard part... not creating them.

This works if you have a base knowledge to begin with... but something like he wants to do you will need EXTENSIVE knowledge...

Learn the basics, do simple stuff, and then move on... once you have a good foundation, find some code and try to decipher EXACTLY what the code does and why they are doing it that way, then go write your own (NEVER run someone else's code)

Been working in the metal sector for 5 years but then decided to drop my job so i could study again for 3 years straight.
Was not a easy thing both financially and mentally but one of the best choices i have made.

You could teach it yourself by doing self study, but lets face it you need a lot of talent to start from there if you have zero experience.
And more importantly the time and a good portion of perseverance.

I would recommend starting with a Object Oriented (OO) programming language.

Then you have to decide what path to take, the most common are .NET(C#) and Java.
I prefer .NET but it all comes down to personal taste.

If you want to learn just go for it and use any means possible or necessary. Just be prepared to spend a lot of time in the progress depending where you want to go.

This post was edited by Sefran on Jul 30 2012 02:31am

What about it didn't interest you?