Going to school for programming? [Help needed]

[heirJORDAN]

I'm interested in starting my own site eventually, and I think being able to code my own custom "hacks" would only save money for the better.

I plan on utilizing this trade mainly for vBulletin forum hacks and I guess coding for the actual website and blog in general would help me as well.

Question up for discussion is: What do I specifically need to look into taking courses for to get me started? (PHP, MySQL, XHTML, etc.?) I'd just like to be prepared to brainstorm an idea for my site/forum and be able to code it without having to sub-contract someone else to do the job for me.

I'd greatly appreciate any type of insight you guys can offer and I'm giving my thank yous in advance.

 

[Daniel]

IMHO going to school for those 3 languages is a waste of time.

Pick stuff up through tutorials, the difficulty of the mentioned languages is fairly simple compared to others, and they all make good money. I currently go to school, and we have never done anything of the mentioned languages, and I'd like to think myself capable enough in them.

Go to W3Schools, Tizag and PHP.net - You can easily pickup a good handhold within a month, and after that it's experience that counts.

Dan

 

[Frikkle]

I agree entirely with Danltn. Taking classes is absolutely a waste of time when it comes to web scripting. At my school, they have a bunch of website development classes, as well as C++ and JAVA classes, but they spend way too much time discussing the "science" of programming and abstract techniques rather than going into the code and learning by implementation. Online tutorials are extremely useful; I'm a big fan of Tizag myself.

 

[Alex.]

Ditto on the tizag front.
I haven't had any experience with programming classes, but from other topics I've read, it seems that books and tutorials are the best way to learn.
PHP and MYSQL for dynamic websites and Beginning PHP 5 are great books for learning php, and the The Complete Idiot's Guide to Creating a Web Page & Blog is good for learning html.

Also try http://www.w3schools.com

 

[Peter]

I have to agree with everyone else here, There is not any real need to take any formal courses for these languages.

1 thing to ensure you do however. When looking at PHP and mySQL ensure you take into consideration (and search for) information regarding security. Security in PHP for some reason is over looked all too often, yet a shoddily written PHP script can make a whole server vulnerable.

1 particular person who springs to mind with regards to PHP security is Chris Shiflett. Take a look through his blog/webpage as well as keep an eye on places such as Zend Devzone and also PHP Architect Magazine who both touch on security at times (and Chris has done some articles/podcasts for them).