I was in this spot about a year ago and have picked up quite a bit of web dev ability since.
I tried a few books, but they didn't really sink is all that well. Here is what I recommend:
- Take cs50 (Harvard intro class) from iTunesU. After attending school for 16 years, this is the single most worthwhile class I've ever taken. Plus it's free. It will give you a basic understanding of programming and a look at how to solve problems. Once you have completed this class, php, js, objective-c or whatever language you are interested in will have a lower learning curve. If you want more, Harvard has archived lectures and assignments of several other web dev classes and they are available online (for free).
- Start with Laravel, which is a relatively new php framework. The best thing about Laravel is that you can make progress in building items quickly and as you learn more, improve them. Like you, I wanted to start building things immediately. Within about 4 hours of reading tutorials, I had a basic CRUD application live. Laravel has a big community with many, many free tutorials. Check out: www.scotch.io and http://maxoffsky.com/category/code-blog/
As others have said, you can probably do this same thing with Angularjs. It might even be the better option.
- join Stackoverflow.com. It is likely that any problem you encounter with Angularjs or Laravel will be discussed and solved there.
- Join Codecademy.com to practice js, jQuery and php syntax.
One major innovation that has occurred over the past decade has been the distribution of technology that was only available to a lucky few.
Over the last decade tech has had a major impact on the daily lives of people like me. Today I can work from anywhere and communicate with everyone I know at any time of day, while 10 years ago I didn't have internet fast enough to watch a youtube video. iPhones weren't even sold in my state until 2008 (I might be off by a year in either direction).
I'm working on a simple web app that allows construction companies to send estimates and invoices by email and text and get paid immediately by cc or ach.
- laravel, twilio, balanced payments
- About 70% done
- Started this project in Sept, work on it for about 15 - 20 hours a week.
It seems that the answer should be, at least in the shot term, for good managers to recognize the 40 hours "available" concept and provide more flexible schedules. No one gains from having an office full of workers surfing Facebook on friday afternoon. Let people be someplace else if it their queue is empty.
From the outside, it seems like startups do this better than most.
> From the outside, it seems like startups do this better than most.
As someone on the outside, hearing horror stories about mandatory 14 hour days and regularly working nights and weekends for startups I'd think they were doing it much worse. It's one of the things that has steered me away from working for a recent startup because I refuse to work more than 8 hours a week.
I had an interview at a startup where I asked the interviewer to take me through my average day at the company. He basically said I'd arrive at 8:30 and leave at 6:30 or 7, sometimes later. I told him that to maintain a healthy work/life balance I would be leaving at 5pm every day and asked him his opinion on that. He said it would be technically acceptable since they can't force you to work more than 8 hours, but would be heavily looked down upon. I didn't take the job.
I was surprised to find so much discussion around the concept of the 15-20 hour actual productive week here, because Hacker News is such a startup friendly environment.
I've often seriously questioned if I'm cut out for startups because of the relatively low number (much less than 40) of productive hours I put in when things are not pressing at regular jobs.
Perhaps "better than most" isn't the right way to say it. My less than clear point was that there is less idle time at a startup than in traditional offices and when you don't have anything to do you do not need to be in the office.
This is why started to build web projects on the side. I have one these white collar jobs and I don't get to create things. I work closely with construction workers and get to see how satisfying it is for them to build something real.
Now I come home form 8 hours of work and spend 4 hours building things. Pretty bizarre.
The Power of Habits by Charles Duhigg. It helped me understand the importance of routines and how they shape our daily lives, impact buying decisions, and become ingrained in workplace culture.
The problems mentioned in the article certainly are not unique to SF, though the scale is pretty large.
Sidney, MT, which is in the Bakken oilfield, has such a shortage of housing that workers there spent last winter sleeping in campers and trucks on the side of the road. In the winter, the temperature can dip to -30 degrees. The dept of transportation (DOT) bottled up a housing projected for almost a year over a right of way dispute. In this case the developer agreed to pay for the improvements, but the DOT insisted on overseeing the process, which increased the cost 2x.
In my experience:
1. Homeowners fear change because they usually like their neighborhood, have most of their assets "at stake", and envision worst case scenarios.
2. Too many elected officials categorize themselves into a soundbite. They don't just campaign by the soundbite, but they govern by it. Project details and reality be damned, I'm pro-parks!
3. Top municipal employees almost always have too much power. When a new elected official comes in, they listen to his/her goals and then put new processes in place, while seldom removing old processes. This adds unreasonable amounts of time, complexity and cost to projects.
The first and second problem can frequently be worked out but the third problem is crippling. If you want to fix the housing crisis, start there.
I tried a few books, but they didn't really sink is all that well. Here is what I recommend:
- Take cs50 (Harvard intro class) from iTunesU. After attending school for 16 years, this is the single most worthwhile class I've ever taken. Plus it's free. It will give you a basic understanding of programming and a look at how to solve problems. Once you have completed this class, php, js, objective-c or whatever language you are interested in will have a lower learning curve. If you want more, Harvard has archived lectures and assignments of several other web dev classes and they are available online (for free).
- Start with Laravel, which is a relatively new php framework. The best thing about Laravel is that you can make progress in building items quickly and as you learn more, improve them. Like you, I wanted to start building things immediately. Within about 4 hours of reading tutorials, I had a basic CRUD application live. Laravel has a big community with many, many free tutorials. Check out: www.scotch.io and http://maxoffsky.com/category/code-blog/
As others have said, you can probably do this same thing with Angularjs. It might even be the better option.
- join Stackoverflow.com. It is likely that any problem you encounter with Angularjs or Laravel will be discussed and solved there.
- Join Codecademy.com to practice js, jQuery and php syntax.
Good luck.