| Over the past 14 months I have put myself through the same self-learning process with a similar goal. Be able to build full working prototypes of the web app ideas in my head. I am fully aware that if one of these start to get some customer traction I will need to have a more experienced dev help me deal with a whole variety of issues from scalability to security and a designer to help with UI/UX and visual appeal. Although I had read a couple of books and tried some tutorials none of it really felt like it stuck until I just started building a site that I wanted. Even though it isn't the most systematic education, each piece that you learn is focused on solving a current problem. As I look back over the year, I have learned a reasonable amount of HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP and MySQL and just enough of deploying to a LAMP stack at my hosting company so that I can get sites up and running. It sounds really daunting, and there were some really hard days this last year, but if you stay focused on solving one or two chunks of the overall problem at a time you can work your way through it. I now can now do what I set out to do, which is build full working prototype sites. I have several demos deployed and am starting pilot implementations with customers on two of the sites. I don't know your technical background or formal training. My own background was pretty technical but not web development. Even if your background is not technical, there are plenty of examples of people with Liberal Arts backgrounds and teens teaching themselves do do web development. Another possibility for you, is to try to go to one of the dev bootcamps, you commit 12 weeks of undivided intense concentration under the tutoring of experienced developers. This would quickly get you a foundation. Best of luck |