Hitting a Wall

[sg707]

@markbrown4

I was thinking the exact same thing. But then felgall followed up claiming everyone sucks apart from him and his 1%, let’s not dwell there any longer, it’s complete rubbish.

FcknDrrn: I’ve always found myself at the intersection of design and programming and web development is a satisfying way for me to use my creative and problem solving skills. Front-end web development is really highly valued at the moment thanks to the explosion of Javascript and front end developers with strong design skills in particular are in high demand.

The other contributors in the thread have given good advice already, HTML, CSS and Javascript should be your immediate focus. You mentioned that you’re familiar with the psd slicing days of old. It’s a very different scene today and those ideas don’t hold much value so you’ll need to start from the ground up and start coding one of your designs in HTML/CSS - I spent a lot of time in the CSS forum here while learning and it’s still a great place to learn these things. CSS has grown up and you can achieve most of the effects you would use in photoshop right in the browsers these days. Javascript allows you to make your designs interactive and most sites today rely on javascript to achieve the kind of interactions that people expect on the web.
You’ll want to learn jQuery as it will make your transition into the world of Javascript much smoother and you’ll be able to get more done without being held back by things like browser inconsistencies.

Stick to learning these front-end skills thoroughly that compliment your design skills, unless you’ve got a particular interest in something on the back-end you’ll be able to pick those things up on the job. Sass would be one addition I’d strongly recommend adding to the list of things to learn - you can think of it as a more powerful version of CSS. If you end up working on a team you’ll also likely need to familiarize yourself with git so that you can make changes to the code and not blow away other peoples changes - this too will happen on the job though.

So focus on HTML, CSS/Sass, Javascript/jQuery. Make as many different types of things as possible and push yourself, there’s plenty of opportunity and it’s a lot of fun. Good luck.

How do I prove myself to get a job?
Yes, a portfolio and resume will be a large part of it. People will want to know you can work in a team, communicate clearly, have a strong sense of design and can make websites. You should try and find a community of web developers and designers near you that you can start to get involved with also.

+1 I agree that front-end developers are sorely lacking. Currently, if you know AngularJS + Bootstrap then you are a hot commodity. If you combine AngularJS + Bootstrap + NodeJS then you can probably name your own price.

[felgall]

@oddz

As a web developer I can’t really remember the last time I used math in the sense it was represented on the tech screen I had. I guess it works for some companies…

I agree that most of the time the solution to a problem is not really a math one. I just used that one as a simple example of where the obvious answer isn’t even remotely close to the best one because it is one that I have come across recently - with respect to JavaScript homework questions misteaching how to write JavaScript. The way the question was worded implied that it related to teaching how to write loops where it would be obvious to any reasonable programmer that the problem could be more efficiently solved without a loop. In this case the art of problem solving is the simple recognition that there is a solution that involves the end point values without needing a loop. Having determined that actually working out or looking up the details of the solution is trivial.

The point I was attempting to make (obviously unsucessfully given the response) is that a good developer/programmer can visualise relationships in the requirements that can provide relatively simple solutions. They can then backfill code to solve the problem that is much shorter and more efficient than that used by others who have simply taken a brute force approach to solving the problem.

The best programmers posess the talent of being able to visualise patterns in the data that lead to solutions to problems without having to apply a brute force approach. Most programmers can’t do this and so end up writing far more code than is necessary.

[markbrown4]

@oddz

I actually recently participated in a real time tech screen with these types of questions. I really didn’t understand most of the questions from a logical sense not to mention a programmatic one. To my defense though I was having a bit of an off day. No bother it was on to the next one and shortly after found a more desirable position anyway. I feel like I’ve traveled back in time whenever I come across those types of tech screens. In the modern world of engineering as it relates to web development front and back-end there are far more pressing topics to gauge ones skill level than math problems. The ONLY real exception to that rule is really low level programming and embedded software where math is a common day to day task. As a web developer I can’t really remember the last time I used math in the sense it was represented on the tech screen I had. I guess it works for some companies…

Totally agree, I’ve been in these types of interviews too - it only shows me the company isn’t a good fit for me rather than the other way around.
One other exception where maths is used heavily is in graphics.

[oddz]

@felgall

The best programmers posess the talent of being able to visualise patterns in the data that lead to solutions to problems without having to apply a brute force approach. Most programmers can’t do this and so end up writing far more code than is necessary.

When I build things I do tend to make them more complex than they need to be. Though that is only because experience has taught me to anticipate new features. Anticipating possible features in the beginning and using a solution that would make it easier to add those features. I’ve never worked at a place where I’ve completed something and never seen it again. High consideration for constant change is a high priority of mine based on the environments I have worked in. I also will say that “complexity” us merely an individuals interpretation. What would be complex to one person might not be complex to another. When I get handed something I didn’t build I always believe initially it is “complex”. So to each their own.

[felgall]

@oddz

When I build things I do tend to make them more complex than they need to be. Though that is only because experience has taught me to anticipate new features. Anticipating possible features in the beginning and using a solution that would make it easier to add those features. I’ve never worked at a place where I’ve completed something and never seen it again. High consideration for constant change is a high priority of mine based on the environments I have worked in. I also will say that “complexity” us merely an individuals interpretation. What would be complex to one person might not be complex to another. When I get handed something I didn’t build I always believe initially it is “complex”. So to each their own.

I agree. Nothing you said there contradicts anything I said. You are talking about complexity in terms of allowing for additional functionality where my comment relates to dramatic differences in complexity for identical results.

[Dr_Kristin_Scha]

To start I’d recommend learning html5 and css3. Start with the basics. Start working with some templates to get familiar with working with code. Then look into learning how to use wordpress, there are plenty of online tutorials on how to install wordpress onto a server, and after you know how to do that working with wordpress is a relative breeze. Wordpress is a great way to ease into working with PHP.

I develop with WAMP then upload my projects when they are finished.

Remember to take it slow, one step at a time and only handle one new thing at a time. It’s important to not get overwhelmed, because there is a lot to learn.