Considering this blog is supposed to be about web design and programming, I’ve done very little mentioning about my progress learning the subject. So, I’m going to spend this post talking about what I’ve been doing and my plans for the future.
Over the course of the past month or so, I’ve been going through the book PHP 5 for the Absolute Beginner by Andy Harris. It’s an excellent beginner book that walks you step by step through very simple programs using all the features of PHP, XML, MySQL, etc. I’ve really only gone through the book once so I haven’t totally absorbed all the concepts yet. I feel like I need to read the book at least 3 times before the material really soaks in, so it’ll be a longer process than I initially imagined.
From now until the time I leave for Asia(August 25) I’m going to finish going through the book and perhaps go through it quickly one more time. I’ll have approximately 3 and a half weeks in Asia and I think I’m going to bring one or two books about CSS and HTML. I’ve realized that by trying to learn PHP and MySQL first I was trying to go to steps 2 and 3 directly without knowing step 1. PHP uses HTML code, and you really can’t do much in PHP if you aren’t an expert an HTML. So for those 3 and a half weeks in Asia I’m going to be reading and studying HTML and CSS.
HTML and CSS are the foundations of making static web pages. By static web pages, I mean web pages where the user cannot interact directly and permanently with the web page. This means no forms, logins, retrieving data, etc. What you can do with HTML and CSS is make stuff like content-based web pages where your only purpose to provide some sort of information with the user. So once I come back from Asia, I’m going to translate my HTML and CSS knowledge into making a content-based web page. I really have no idea what kind of content I’m going to put on the web page, but that is really of secondary importance. My main goal out of all of this is to become an expert in HTML and CSS.
After I finish with HTML and CSS by mid October, I’m going to go back and become and expert in PHP and MySQL. I imagine that it’ll take a little bit longer to learn that than HTML and CSS, but since I’ve already had some limited exposure to the material, it shouldn’t be too difficult. Hopefully I can have a fully functional PHP and MySQL website up by the end of December. After that I really don’t know where I’ll go with my programming. There’s all sorts of other languages like AJAX and Java that I’ll need to eventually learn, but I don’t really know at this time how important those other languages are to what I’m trying to achieve.
So my schedule for the next few months will go something like this:
8/17 – 8/25: Finish Reading PHP 5 and MySQL for the Absolute Beginner
8/26 - 9/18: Read 2 HTML + CSS books in Asia
9/18 – 10/15: Create a Static Webpage
10/16 – 11/31: Read 2 PHP 5 + MySQL books
12/1 – 12/31: Create a Dynamic Webpage
Related Books: