Relsqui comments on (Virtual) Employment Open Thread - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (276)
So, I have a forgotten year of C++ under my belt and I can work with HTML and CSS. What exactly goes into web programming? I was imagining it'd be a few months studying CSS, Javascript, jQuery, Python, MySQL, PHP, Django, that Google Apps language, et cetera, and it just sounded like a lot of work. Also, I've had 2 occasions where I spent a few hours looking for resources to help with a problem and I just had to give up, which is hella frustrating. I couldn't get processing.js to work which sucked 'cuz I'd written up this cool thing in Processing and figured it'd be really easy to work into a website I'd designed, and I felt stupid, and I don't like feeling stupid. I mean if I'm chilling with SIAI folk then I guess I might as well take advantage of their knowledge and pick up some web programming (especially since it's really just fun in the first place), but... I dunno, it feels like there's this big unknown gap between me and being a below-average web programmer, and I don't like being below-average at anything, let alone having to work hard to become below-average. Hence I also avoid learning math, even though I know I really should learn more.
Two pieces of advice which work for me; your mileage may vary.
1) Let the projects drive the education, not vice versa. Learn languages and language features when you have a way to apply them immediately; you'll remember them better.
2) Make sure you can run the code before you write the code. ;)