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General Discussion

catalin moraru
catalin moraru
8,813 Points

What should I learn next after database foundations?

Hi guys,

soon I will be finishing database foundations. I was thinking of starting to learn ruby rails or python.

What do you think I should start learning?

I have no background as a developer, my programming skills are close to none, but I want to learn to develop server side apps and websites :)

4 Answers

Justin Black
Justin Black
24,793 Points

You should really go through an entire class set instead of specific libraries. I think your best bet is going to start with the tracks, and I'd honestly start with the front-end ones since ultimately you want to build websites. These will give you the necessary knowledge in front end ( HTML, CSS and JavaScript ) to move forward.

From there, you can move into some of the back-end stuff, such as PHP or Ruby. I've been at this for 20 years and I learn something new every day. I'd almost say not to learn ruby as a first language, just because it can be a pain -- and some of the videos here are very very out dated and cease to work in most cases. But at the end of the day, I'd definitely start with something more on the front end -- it''s great to know how to do everything indepth when venturing into this industry -- at a job you may not always have your own front end developer like i do.

William Li
PLUS
William Li
Courses Plus Student 26,868 Points

I have no background as a developer, my programming skills are close to none, but I want to learn to develop server side apps

Ruby or PHP tracks are great for you to learn back-end language; so is Python.

Also, I've recently come across this site http://www.labnol.org/internet/learn-coding-online/28537/, hope it can be of some use to you.

catalin moraru
catalin moraru
8,813 Points

Hi Justin, thank for your answer. I have already done html, css and started on javascript, but... this is my problem: I work in a digital agency as an SEO consultant, in the programming department we have 8 devs, and 6 of them in front-end. Guys working in front-end are always frustrated by the sheer amount of changes the designers want, spending hours over hours creating a LP from a visual with hundreds of photoshop effects, never being able to re-create 100% the approved key visual. And it is not their fault, I know for a fact that they are good developers.

And I don't want to get to the point of being frustrated, trying to make a website responsive, with who knows how many effects.

This is why I want to do something on the backend, this is why I started db foundations. I know that I wont be doing programming any time soon, just because I took a tutorial on teamtreehouse, but with small steps I want to learn one programming language and start making small tasks on different websites.

Hope I was clear enough :))

Justin Black
Justin Black
24,793 Points

Absolutely, now knowing your culture ( and I still recommend doing javascript -- you'll do a fair bit of it as a backend person ), I'd say go for PHP. Doing procedural style ( outdated ) at first, and moving into Objective. It's probably the widest used language on the internet today, but Ruby on Rails is quickly catching ground ( little info point: team tree house was done in Ruby on Rails ).

Almost all hosts have PHP ability, not all hosts have rails ability. Especially where you are working for an agency, its probable that you have your own servers. I'd talk to the server guys and see what they support -- and go with that since it directly links to your work environment. I'd be willing to bet that they say PHP, and if so -- make sure you get the version ( big differences between 5.3 and 5.5 ).

Maybe ask them about Ruby, and if you have support for that or not. Either way, start with one -- learn it -- and I mean REALLY learn it. ( I write php code in my sleep these days -- at least it seems like it ). Then you can look into other languages -- or even just frameworks ( like Laravel or Symfony ).

catalin moraru
catalin moraru
8,813 Points

All the guys said to go with php :)), only one of them know ruby, but he is not at an expert level. So I will go with Ruby, nice and slow.

Thanks for the advice, Cheers