| 1. If you don't already have familiarity with HTML and CSS, learn those first. I recommend a book called Learning Web Design: http://www.learningwebdesign.com/ It teaches like a math book, with practice problems after each lesson. 2. Pick a language to learn. I had a C++ background that I hadn't touched since high school, so I found Ruby a little confusing. But it may also be because of the teaching style of the books I used... Anyway, I switched to PHP and learned from Larry Ullman's book, PHP 6 and MySQL 5 (http://www.dmcinsights.com/phpmysql3/) 3. Going through both of these will probably take you 2-3 months if you're diligent. But once you're halfway through the second book, I'd say you know enough to start building something and using the PHP book as a reference. What you'll find is that as you build things, you will learn a lot more about how to make your app come together. Also, I disagree with the comment that it takes years to be able to do something decent with your newfound programming knowledge. Yes, it will take years before you can talk shop with the best of them, but as someone who has taken several languages (Spanish, Japanese, Latin) and played several instruments (piano, flute), I know it doesn't have take years to get past doing scales. That's has more to do with ability to learn quickly and dedication. |