Barelly making it out of high school, no real chance to land a college but will ofc try, but I see lot of companies looking for junior positions in PHP or Java in my country, and its very well paid. What has coding language/skill has the best ratio of difficulty to master and application to land a job? PHP or Java or any other? Please help.
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What always caught my attention when giving through these projects was any project they had worked on. The actual project didn't matter so much. But almost always, how well they were able to understand what they worked on directly translated to their ability to present it in simple and concise few sentences.
Putting these pieces together - my advice is to go find something you want to build and build it. You'll figure out the best language, the libraries to use and all the good stuff on the context of figuring out how to build what you want to build.
The only real skills I strongly recommend you learn:
- git
- Makefile
- shell scripting
Bonus if you can run Linux on your primary computer. You'll learn a lot from just using a Linux box for daily use.
Go build something for fun. Write a text adventure game. Write a Sudoku solver. Write a reddit bot to count how many times someone said "wubalubadubdub" per day.
At some point, you'll have to transition from fun projects to projects that will look good on a resume. Keep that in mind and don't get lost in the woods and forget that you are on a mission.
Happy coding!
I actually crammed C# for two weeks for another job, but didn't get that one. In most of these jobs, it took about 1-3 days to start writing useful code.
I guess you could come in with 5 years of experience in something, but if they like you enough, you'll figure it out. Skill in a language or architecture also doesn't mean you have skill with the code itself. Like a language, the best way to learn is immersion.
https://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/
https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/
I would learn C first since so many languages are based on C and the move on to Java. You'll want to take shortcuts ,don't. It's best you define a structure on how you will learn new stuff from the start.
Here's something to think about.
I've learned that you need to set a schedule and get out of the house to get things done.
So, here's the actions to take:
1) Decide what you want to learn.
2) Make a plan on how you will achieve it.
Unless you have something in mind just copy something or someone. But make it a challenge.3) Find a place where you will study. Not at home and it should have limited internet access.
4) Set a schedule. Maybe, every day from 6 to 7
5) Set 1 day for study and the next day for action and review and work time on your project.
6) Follow thru
The big key is that you need to get out of the house and you need to keep a schedule. It's very hard to stay disciplined at home.
I would lean toward Rails(ruby) or Laravel (PHP).
Those are frameworks. Laravel might even be more in demand now and easier to get in to.
If you're just getting started learn some HTML and CSS. Head First HTML and CSS is a good book.
Next they have a Head First PHP and MySQL book that is good.
Once you completed those start building some simple apps on your own. Sign up for a basic hosting account and learn about setting up a domain, pointing the A record to the server, etc. FTP the files up.
After that signup for Laracasts.com, there are great tutorials, sign up for a Github account, start going through the courses on Laracasts.
I would recommend using a macbook if possible, or start saving up for one or see if someone can pass a used one along to you, it just makes the tutorials easier. When I've tried to use windows in the past it's possible but seems like you run in to windows only issues that take hours to resolve on a regular basis.
For hosting at this point go through the laracast tutorial on Forge, it's a server setup/deployment tool, it makes setting up droplets on Digital Ocean for Laravel super easy. If you're just learning you could sign up for a trial and just learn how to spin up the server, you could still ssh in to the droplet and deploy with the command line after you cancel your forge subscription.
So going through these steps you should have a pretty good handle on setting up websites and starting to develop web applications. You'll probably still need someone to recommend you that knows you and works at a company.
Good luck.
Dead Comment
I would advise you to start with HTML/CSS first if you don't know that. Then Javascript - because javascript is used everywhere now.
Best intro course to javascript: Many people will tell you books like Eloquent Javascript is the best, but that book will confuse the hell out of you if you're a complete noob. Sure it's great once you get a handle on things, but it will be frustrating to try to learn from it at first.
Here's the best intro course: https://watchandcode.com/p/practical-javascript
Then after you get a hang of it, I recommend Udemy courses by Colt Steel. You can start with the Web Developer's Bootcamp:
https://www.udemy.com/course/the-web-developer-bootcamp/
This is basically what I started with
Source: I’ve been a web dev / CTO for the past 15 years and this is what I really need right now.
Your likely going to be working on webapps and not desktop apps though.
if you want to get better and better, you should keep learning other languages (1 every 1 or 2 years should be good enough), knowing 1 language in every paradigm will get you to think about what is possible in other languages, and satisfaction of knowing something new :P
I personally would recommend Python + C to get something high level that can get you to be productive fast, and something that makes you understand that goes into making that at a lower level (without going as low as Assembly), and I think both are good options because they're pretty much here to stay (you might hear some say that you should focus on more modern stuff than C, but there's a pretty good reason it's still here, it works, and it is fast)
and then learning stuff that'll feel weird, LISP, and Prolog, (if you go with this suggestion, when you "finish", you should be 4~6 years in, so try to learn other stuff along the way, like SQL, shell scripting, fundamentals of files and processes, networking (how it works, not necessarily implementing it), software architecture, etc. but focus on what is interesting and useful to you)