Entering the world of Web Development/Design

kormak

Hi Folks,

So I’ve been doing a fair amount of research and reading other people’s threads, etc… on here & Creative Ireland but thought I’d throw my own one up for some opinions, advice & direction.
I’ve reached a stage in my career where a new path needs to be chosen, through no fault of my own! With over 10 years in IT, I’m now setting my sights on moving towards Web Development.
The main reason for this though is to expand my wife’s design business which is going pretty well at the moment. Although she has done websites in the past and pretty decent ones too, she’s had to outsource alot of the work and we both feel an in-house web developer would be key to the business. This is where I fit in.
So… where to start?
Well I’ve studied basic HTML in the past and would have some coding experience working in IT. But that’s about it. I have already started to take tutorials on http://www.w3schools.com/ and intend looking at Lynda.com for some video tutorials. But in order to get a good grounding for putting stuff together and how everything all works in tandem, I’m also looking at skilling up through classroom courses.
So far, the only ones I can see of any real benefit to me are;
Webmaster course @ IACT
Or
Effective Web Design @ MadArt

to latter being the preffered choise right now!

What are people’s opinions on these courses? Anyone completed them before and what did you think? I would imagine they’re going to be pretty fast moving, but it’s hard to gauge until you really throw yourself in the deep end.
7 weeks (21 hours) doesn't really feel like an adequate amount of time to get up to a working knowledge to apply at a business level!
I know people on here are gonna say, “do online courses it’ll save you money…” I am doing these and still feel the classroom environment will get me in the right frame of mind to push this plan forward.
My wife (and potential boss :eek:) reckons she’ll show me as much as she knows and give me a crash course in Photoshop before taking any course.
Would people suggest I attend a Dreamweaver course first before doing one of these web courses? I have no experience in Dreamweaver or Photoshop for that matter.
Anyway, I’m lucky in the sense that I’ve support in place and have a number of potential business projects to use as mock projects, but I’m still at early stages and would like to get cracking on this plan ASAP.
Please feel free to cast any comments both positive and constructive… none negative!
+ any other course recommnedations that I might have missed... the general consesnus is they're outdated + sh1t.
cheers,

C

omega42

I still use dreamweaver myself but only to code so if your learning from scratch I would learn to code first otherwise dreamweaver wont be much good to you as It bloats your code. Photoshop is good and the basic's are easy enough to pick up, The question is do you have an eye for design, no amount of courses will teach you that. If the answer is NO then perhaps you should let your wife do the design and you focus on the development of the sites. With the introduction of HTML 5 and CSS 3 a lot of the "design" work is done through coding nowadays anyway so Photoshop would only really be for mock up's.

I cant give you any info on the courses sorry but Lynda.com is very good

Hope that helps

kormak

omega42 wrote: »

I still use dreamweaver myself but only to code so if your learning from scratch I would learn to code first otherwise dreamweaver wont be much good to you as It bloats your code. Photoshop is good and the basic's are easy enough to pick up, The question is do you have an eye for design, no amount of courses will teach you that. If the answer is NO then perhaps you should let your wife do the design and you focus on the development of the sites. With the introduction of HTML 5 and CSS 3 a lot of the "design" work is done through coding nowadays anyway so Photoshop would only really be for mock up's.

I cant give you any info on the courses sorry but Lynda.com is very good

Hope that helps

Cheers, I think the general plan is for my wife to do the design parts of any work. I may look at this in the future, but right now it will be coding and building. Lynda seems pricey enough... I was surprised by that.
anyone else have any thoughts on these courses I listed?

Kenny Logins

~€19 per month isn't expensive...

kormak

Kenny Logins wrote: »

~€19 per month isn't expensive...

I was more leaning to the €29 a month with the project files.
€348 per year for an online course?? I suppose if it's a good learning facility like most people say it is, then it might be good to subscribe as a continuous learning skills booster. How an ever it is still just an online course...

Kenny Logins

First week is free, give it a go. You can dip in and out of any course you like - if you just need some PHP or Photoshop etc., just view what you need to know.

That IACT course content sounds a bit dated - Flash?