| I'd start much simpler than any of the full-on backend languages mentioned like Ruby, Python, Java, etc. Get the very basics down - it will be fast and easy and you'll feel good you are making progress. HTML and CSS - don't get bogged down in HTML5 or any latest cutting edge thing or another. Just the core for now. Once you've got this down, which really is pretty simple stuff, I'd go into jQuery and Javascript. Both are fairly easy to approach though deceptively so maybe, with a ton of upside; and with the push that NodeJS is making, that may be all the programming you need even for the backend. I don't have any good rec's on learning HTML but google it, there's a ton out there. CSS I'd do the same, though I also really like CSS - The Missing Manual by McFarland. For Javascript you'll be hearing a lot of Javascript - The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford, a must read if you are serious. And jQuery, honestly is so fun/powerful/addictive, if you get a big of Javascript down you will be off and running. There are countless tutorial websites on jQuery and more books coming everyday. Bookwise it's hard to rec right now as the new version of jQuery just dropped today and everything is a bit out of date as it stands. Bottom line, don't get caught up in trying to learn too much to begin with. Also, good UI Coders are hard to come by and you can always find a Rails/Python/back-end guy to help out until you get that stuff down too. |