kelby0320

Hi Filip, I'm a computer science student at a university and I also work on several internal web applications for a rather large company (not sure if I should put the name or not, better to be safe than sorry I guess). First, I'd like to say that though I've learned a lot at school, and having a degree can really help with getting a decent job in this field, all of the knowledge I've acquired concerning developing web sites and web apps has been acquired on the job, outside of school. You can definitely make it as a web developer without degree (though it can help). My current and former boss have both been taught on-the-job and are great programmers and very good at what they do. Now on to business. To start with you should probably learn php, it's used on quite a few web sites out there. It's not a very difficult language to learn, though the syntax is C-like so it looks quite a bit different that python. The next thing I would suggest is that you familiarize yourself with some of the frameworks that are out there and the MVC (Model View Controller) design pattern. There are a multitude of frameworks out there, some of which include Django, Ruby on Rails, Code Igniter, and ASP.NET MVC. You mentioned you have learned python, so you might start with Django which is a python based MVC framework. It seems to be pretty well built, though I haven't used it personally. I use ASP.NET MVC at work (as well as Code Igniter). Code Igniter is a simple but powerful php MVC framework you might want to look into if you start learning php. .NET pops up quite a lot at various companies and I personally really like it. It uses Microsoft's own C# language which is quite advanced, but you can pick up the basics of it pretty easily, and to be honest most of the really advanced stuff doesn't come up too much. You'll also need to familiarize yourself with SQL databases as they are pretty much the standard form of database that websites use. MySQL, or if you prefer to use Microsoft's tools (such as when you are using ASP.NET), MSSQL are two of the most common out there. Other's would be Postgresql (which is quite good, I've used it before) and, of course, Oracle, which is popular with big companies. Lastly, some websites don't use server side code (python, php, ruby, C#), and are built just with HTML, CSS, and Javascript. There are quite a few javascript frameworks out there you should look at when you get a chance. Obviously JQuery and it's associates JQueryui and JQuery validate are pretty common (everyone uses JQuery, almost), but there are other, more full featured frameworks that are built with javascript. Some examples include Telerik's Kendo UI (I use this at work. It is awesome!), and Sencha's Ext JS. These two frameworks I have mentioned are very powerful and combine JQuery with a set of widgets (things like the text editor we use to write these posts) and a validation framework (similar to JQueryui, but integrated better with the framework). I should mention that both Kendo UI and Ext JS come in two versions, one that is licensed under an open source license (GPLv3 in the case of Kendo) and is free, the other is a commercial license that costs money (and comes with some extra features). You'll definitely want the free version to start, but know that if you are building a commercial site you'll need a commercial license, which can cost >$1000. Well that's all I can think of right now. I know that's a lot of information to take in. One of the things about building web sites is that there is more than one tool for the job. Learning as many of these technologies as you can will make you more valuable to potential employers, but it can also take years to learn. I definitely suggest looking at some of the frameworks out there and learn about the MVC design pattern. I've worked on sites that have been built completely from scratch and sites that have been built using a framework. The sites built with frameworks are much easier to work on, much easier to maintain, and much easier to expand with new features than the sites that have been built from scratch. One last thing I just thought of. At work we use pluralsight.com. It is a website dedicated to providing training videos and other resources to various software developers. The training videos on pluralsight.com cover a wide range of topics, everything from IT related stuff (learning Windows Server, Linux, etc) to developing desktop software, mobile apps, and web sites. It is not free, unfortunately. I think subscriptions start at $300 a year, but if you are serious about learning this stuff and you can spare the cash it is a great resource. Have a look at the site, you should be able to browser the videos and see the reviews without having an account.