thanks

But curiosity and trial and error are my friends… ^_^

The site never really launched but I implemented a photo uploader that somehow found its way all over the tubes and people began using my server for image hosting. I had to shut that down after it used several hundred gigabytes of bandwidth.

That sounds like an interesting story, Paul. Care to elaborate?

There was this really childish website around that tought kids the basics of HTML, so I fired that up, and fired up notepad and started experimenting with code and looking at what the results were. Not exactly standards-compliant, but whatever, I was young :p

A few years on, I started to look at PHP and MySQL to see how I could extend this knowledge, and it all carried on from there..

1997 – In high school learned some HTML..but I’d hardly call that programming.

2000 – After high school I realized I could serve web pages from my home computer. I wrote my first ASP application….which was basically a data-collection program used for phishing. (Only used it on the well-deserving victims)

2000 – Hired on by a .com whose entire site was coded in JSP. Determined that I could make the site work much better with ASP so ended up re-coding the whole thing. Did several other sites around this time.

After the .com crash I learned some PHP. Actually I did all of the programming homework for a friend of mine. He paid me to write the programs and I learned PHP.

Fast forward to now…I’ve created probably a dozen smaller PHP sites that I use for various things….mainly to fulfill needs of my own. (I wish there was a web site that…..) I’ve messed a little with Ruby on Rails…and while I think it’s a great framework/language….PHP is much more..there. You can take a PHP script almost anywhere and get it to run with basically no fuss. ROR is a different animal. It’s the car in your driveway that only runs on Hydrogen. Sure, it’s great…and it may be the future….but it’s still got some drawbacks.

I’m looking at PHP frameworks right now….that feels like the direction I want to head for future projects…the problem is which one to select/learn.

I would’ve done CM (Computational Media), but I felt it was too oriented towards people with art/design skills, which I don’t possess. I just hope that a management degree with a CS minor and 4 years experience as a co-op in a .NET consultant shop is enough to do what I want to do in the field.

That’s how I feel right now. But the threads program helps out with that since I can take classes more focused on what I am interested in.

@Dan – haha yes, it was Directron. I’m not sure 3705 is taught every semester but if it’s taught again, take it.

I’m pretty much in the same boat as you. I was building and modding computers at the time. Thought coding was boring and hardware FTW. I really sucked at Newland’s Java class. In fact, my sister is taking it now, and he told her that I couldn’t code. LOL.

Fast forward 2 years. I’ve realized the power of the internet and decided to try and make a dent!

Didn’t know about LCC3705, gonna check that out!

as I really wasn’t enjoying taking most of the CS classes at tech, and just wanted to take the ones that actually interested me

I know quite a few people in that boat at Tech..

I took a programming course last year in school where we covered basic html/css, dabbled with javascript, then spent more than half of the year in php/mysql. I learnt A LOT. I didn’t think I’d learn so much from a class, but I did.

Now… I don’t know enough to go out and code a full blown web app, but I got the basics down. My basic knowledge in databases has been very useful, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m actually glad my teacher taught us all the proper SQL Queries rather than just making us use the phpMyAdmin GUI.

I still want to learn more about PHP and get that down, but lately I’ve been tinkering with Rails. I want to try so many more languages and see what I like, but I’m going to take them on one at a time.

I ended up switching to Management with a minor in CS, as I really wasn’t enjoying taking most of the CS classes at tech, and just wanted to take the ones that actually interested me. I wish I could take that LCC class though, it sounds like something in which I’d really be interested. I decided to switch to management because as much as I like coding, I’d much rather be on the business side of things than the coding side, but I hate managers who don’t understand the technical aspect, so I feel like I could really fulfill that role. So now half the year I learn management stuff (with one CS class I’m interested in), and the other half a year I come to my co-op job and code web-apps in .NET. I’m pretty sure I’ll be on good footing after I graduate to hopefully go out to California and find a job in the tech industry. I’ve lived in Atlanta my whole life, and now gone to college here, and I really want to go to the west coast immediately following graduation.

1) The C Programming Language (2nd Edition) – Kerninghan & Ritchie
2) The C++ Programming Language (3rd Edition) – B. Stroustrup
3) The Haskell Road to Logic, Maths and Programming – Doets, Eijck
4) The Art of Computer Programming vol I – III (grab the IV fascicles as well) – Knuth
5) Programming Erlang: Software for a Concurrent World – Armstrong
6) Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software – Gamma, Helm, Johnson, Vlissides
7) Generative Programming – Methods, Tools, and Applications – Czarnecki & Eisenecker
8) Operating Systems Design and Implementation, 3/E – Tanenbaum, Woodhull
9) Accuracy and Stability of Numerical Algorithms – Higham – Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

Once you complete the above titles, you will be able to learn guru level ruby , python, php and all that jazz while you walk through the bookstore corridor.

You will not be learning programming in IRC channels, social mingling etc. Dark power overlords do not share their power with no one. Some, may share their books, but that’s just about it.

That site is long gone but I now take myself taught knowledge of xhtml, css, php, sql – and apply it to my every day job as a Network Systems Admin and Webmaster for my employer. I’m also spending my nights helping other Non-Profits in the area with their websites and constantly re-vamping my own site (see link to my Maintenance page above, haha).

It’s something that has always fascinated me and the ever changing world of technology ensures that I’ll always have something new to learn.