I haven’t developed much in my technological career – because I don’t really have the patience for it. The reality of SweetClarity is drawing me back in – it seems like, for now, I need to get my hands back into development. I have solid foundations in software development, databases, methodology, etc. I have no practical experience developing web applications (though I did head a bold organizational .ASP project when the technology was questionable – this started sometime in 1999).
I’ve subscribed to Lynda – an online training service…where they seem to have many of the courses I need to get back into things (and it only costs $25 per month with unlimited access). I originally had a list of 3 topics to cover:
- HTML
- CSS
- PHP
As I have begun to dig deeper into these technologies the list expanded to include:
- Javascript
- CodeIgniter (this is a PHP framework I chose to use – it is not covered in Lynda’s course).
I have completed the HTML course, I am almost through the PHP course and I am midway into the CSS course and now the list has grown to include
- AJAX
Additional topics that are on hold include Adobe flash related technologies – but these really can wait (I am praying that by the time they become relevant we’ll have a capable developer on board to take this off my hands completely):
- Flash
- Flex
- AIR
I am thankful that I don’t need to fuss around much with Apache and that my previous SQL experience is relevant and applicable to MySQL – otherwise those would be on the list as well.
My head is bursting with information – I have been shooting straight through for about a week. Thankfully it is holding together because I know why I need these technologies and how they come together to enable me to do what I need to do. There is a context and each technology plays a role within that context and is an enabler on the way.
I also greatly appreciate how far these technologies have come and how mature they are methodoligically. Though it is a lot to learn, development feels more streamlined and mature then it did when I last fiddled with it some years ago. I am actually looking forward to start coding. This will probably happen in the next few days.