when would be a time to realize I am too stupid to learn php
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when would be a time to realize I am too stupid to learn php
When would be the time for someone to say himself "Dude, you are too stupid to learn programing, give it up." I been at this for 3 months of solid 8 hours a day at it and I have nothing to show for. I can follow a codes and know what the elements are and what they do by reading the code but then I think to myself there is no way on earth I will ever be able to come up with this sort of code myself. 
Re: when would be a time to realize I am too stupid to learn
I would say that you are surely not stupid, if you have worked so hard at learning and you can read scripts and understand what each element is. If you have no previous background in programming, it isn't so surprising that you haven't caught on to the way of thinking that you need to have, to write programs yourself, in just 3 months.
Having said that, though, I also know (as a retired teacher of computer subjects) that some people have different modes of thinking and learning, and some of these are not so good at programming skills, but may be superior at other kinds of skills. It's very difficult to know whether you should continue working at learning something that doesn't come easily to you, or just recognize that your talents and time could be more successful at some other kind of work.
I can't give you advice, but I'd suggest that you consider the following factors:
Having said that, though, I also know (as a retired teacher of computer subjects) that some people have different modes of thinking and learning, and some of these are not so good at programming skills, but may be superior at other kinds of skills. It's very difficult to know whether you should continue working at learning something that doesn't come easily to you, or just recognize that your talents and time could be more successful at some other kind of work.
I can't give you advice, but I'd suggest that you consider the following factors:
- Do you enjoy working with code? If you don't, you probably should not spend more time studying it.
- Was the 3 month, 8 hours a day, spent in a classroom, or reading, or what? It's possible that the way you were studying (or the instructor, or the book's author) was just not suited to your mode of learning. In case you have been studying online, some people find this very effective, but others just get bogged down and confused.
- Why did you begin studying? Was it to prepare you for working in this field, or just as recreation? Some people go to college for years, studying a major that they eventually realize is just not what they want to do for the rest of their life. This is not a good use of someone's time.
Re: when would be a time to realize I am too stupid to learn
Yes, I enjoy Immensely. Every time I am able to come up with a code that works it is a celebration for me. I can't stand still in my chair. my arms goes up in the air, I do a dance, I come back and refresh the page and see my result half a dozen times and then make 2 backups of my code on my computer and upload it on cloud as well. I would say I enjoy it a lot.califdon wrote:I can't give you advice, but I'd suggest that you consider the following factors:
- Do you enjoy working with code?
my studying has mostly been about reading books and doing practical exercise online. Looking up other people's code and try to adapt the codes to my needs and try to understand each element of the syntax one by one. The greatest challenge for me is the language. English is not my native language. Although I am fluent in English I often have to look terms used in the dictionary first. I had spent an incredible of time working on connecting to a database and get records out and then update them. for me it wasn't the idea of doing the job it was about learning how to do it. I then uploaded my codes to a forum and everyone made fun of me because I used deprecated functions.califdon wrote:[*]Was the 3 month, 8 hours a day, spent in a classroom, or reading, or what? It's possible that the way you were studying (or the instructor, or the book's author)
I created an application in Microsoft Access which is great but only a desktop application. I want to use the knowledge I gained while creating a desktop application and bring it online so other people can enjoy using it. But the application was designed and constructed in GUI. NOw I want to learn how to code myself. I do it because I love working with data to make thing easier to do a job. What I find so difficult is every where I look and read or watch video, people don't teach what programing is, they only give you a set of function and explain to you what a function does and then tag another function below and explain what that function does and so on. At the end this method is only helping me at becoming a better copier of codes. The only site I saw a great tutorial was on http://devzone.zend.com/10/php-101-part ... cessities/... I caught-on what a pdo class was on the first read because it made sense and it was explained in a language I can understand. The author didn't throw a bunch of functions out and explained the workflow. Instead the author used metaphors to convey what a class is and why you should use it and how to use it and when. At the end what I am looking for is not codes for my application. what I want is to learn how to speak computer language. in other words: what is the point of knowing every single word in a dictionary if I don't know anything about grammar?califdon wrote:[*]Why did you begin studying?
Re: when would be a time to realize I am too stupid to learn
here is another good example of what makes sense to me. I taken this extract from http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/php/w ... rogrammer/
In any case. the two links that I provided in my response are worth looking over if you are like me struggling at putting things together. they are worth a read for sure..
In 3 solid months of doing research in books and online, this is the first time I ever came across an Outline like this. This is IT! Whenever I want to build something, whatever it is in the 3D world I always plan for it on paper first. The problem that I been faced with is I don't know how to outline what I need to do to create my program since all I know is functions. I dont know about the sequence of function to use in order to get an end product at the end. They don't teach that anywhere. I am sure there is a good reason for it, because I guess there are as many sequence as can be depending on what you are building. But let's look outside the box for a minute.... people "Great People" are taking the time to try and teach other on how to do this. Wouldn't be more efficient to unravel an outline of what you want to accomplish first before you try showing someone how to accomplish it? To me it makes a lot of sense. There aren't that many authors who does that though, I wish there was more.One approach that has saved me time — both in development and in commenting — is to write an outline in comments first:
view plaincopy to clipboardprint?
<?php
// Include necessary data
// Initialize the database connection
// Include the common header markup
// Determine the page variables from the POST data
// Load the proper database info using the page vairiables
// Loop through the loaded rows
// Format the images for display
// Create a permalink
// Format the entry for display
// Add the formatted entry to the entry array
// Collapse the entry array into page-ready markup
// Output the entries
// Include the common footer markup
As you can see, without writing a single line of code, I already know almost exactly what the file will look like. Best of all, you can plan out an entire application this way, and if you get to a point where one feature requires a functionality tweak to another, all you have to do is change the comment.
In any case. the two links that I provided in my response are worth looking over if you are like me struggling at putting things together. they are worth a read for sure..
Re: when would be a time to realize I am too stupid to learn
I think I am beginning to understand your situation. As a former teacher (of MS Access, for years), my assessment is that you are probably fully capable of learning programming, but you have adopted a route to learning that is very treacherous. The Internet is a wonderful storehouse--but, of what? You can find some very valuable information online, but (a) it is not well organized, for the most part, and (b) absolutely anyone can publish whatever comes into their mind. You have found several good articles, but when you do a search and follow the link, you have no idea whether it was written (or presented as a video) by someone who both knows what he or she is talking about, and whether that person has ANY idea of how to present information so that others, especially beginners, will understand it. It is no small job to filter out the mediocre or bad information, and organize it, structure it so that you can learn in an efficient manner. Have you looked at Khan Academy (https://www.khanacademy.org/cs)? At a higher level, have you taken advantage of online college courses offered free by MIT (http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/intro-programming/) or University of California (http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/intro-programming/) or Stanford (http://see.stanford.edu/see/courseinfo. ... 6adcae1111)?
If it were possible for you to attend college classes, that would be my recommendation, at least for a year, to get you properly started. Usually (not always, unfortunately), college instructors have experience both in their subject AND in teaching. I found the greatest challenge in teaching was to structure my material so that the information is presented in the best sequence to make sense to students, and then to be open to questions that arise in class. That usually means to begin with fundamentals and proceed to more advanced information that depends on understanding earlier facts.
I don't disagree at all with those who emphasize the value of copying someone else's script and experimenting with changing one thing at a time, to get the idea of how they work, but I recommend doing that after you have had some amount of formal training, so that you aren't overwhelmed by not understanding the fundamentals first.
You may also be doing yourself a disservice by attempting projects that are too complicated at the early stages of your studies. When I try to learn a new programming language (say, Python or Ruby), I still (after decades of programming experience) begin with the famous "Hello World" script--just a few lines of code that do nothing more complicated than print "Hello World" on the screen. When I can get that to work, I gradually add complexity to it. I wouldn't even consider starting to learn a new language by attempting a real, useful script or program! There is just far too much that I wouldn't understand, at first, leading to confusion and discouragement.
Speaking of languages, I commend you on your mastery of English! I didn't detect that you are not a native English speaker until I had read several of your posts, including your statement that it is a second language for you. That certainly adds a difficulty for you. I respect those who can speak more than one language. Learning another natural language is quite difficult for me, much harder than learning another computer programming language!
If it were possible for you to attend college classes, that would be my recommendation, at least for a year, to get you properly started. Usually (not always, unfortunately), college instructors have experience both in their subject AND in teaching. I found the greatest challenge in teaching was to structure my material so that the information is presented in the best sequence to make sense to students, and then to be open to questions that arise in class. That usually means to begin with fundamentals and proceed to more advanced information that depends on understanding earlier facts.
I don't disagree at all with those who emphasize the value of copying someone else's script and experimenting with changing one thing at a time, to get the idea of how they work, but I recommend doing that after you have had some amount of formal training, so that you aren't overwhelmed by not understanding the fundamentals first.
You may also be doing yourself a disservice by attempting projects that are too complicated at the early stages of your studies. When I try to learn a new programming language (say, Python or Ruby), I still (after decades of programming experience) begin with the famous "Hello World" script--just a few lines of code that do nothing more complicated than print "Hello World" on the screen. When I can get that to work, I gradually add complexity to it. I wouldn't even consider starting to learn a new language by attempting a real, useful script or program! There is just far too much that I wouldn't understand, at first, leading to confusion and discouragement.
Speaking of languages, I commend you on your mastery of English! I didn't detect that you are not a native English speaker until I had read several of your posts, including your statement that it is a second language for you. That certainly adds a difficulty for you. I respect those who can speak more than one language. Learning another natural language is quite difficult for me, much harder than learning another computer programming language!
Re: when would be a time to realize I am too stupid to learn
Gosh! you have no idea how much I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me about this. thank you. I will follow your links.
I know what you mean by starting small "Hello World" lol I have warn off the paint on my keyboard with all the letters that compose the words "hello world" lol Although I agree with that I also have a bit of theory behind me also. just enough to tease teh heck out of me with this new way of creating a program. Let me give you an example:
I have a really good base to build a website: register , login, profile ... all that is working great. I havent' put much css to it yet but the mechanics of it are working. if I was to continue where I am stuck right now in Access it would take me but two seconds to find a solution to what I am trying to do: passing a userid value to a foreign key field in another table. I would simply type in the default data field of the form data = [TempVars]![CurrentUserID] but in mysql and php it is not as easy. I spend hours and hours on end trying to find a solution to little problems that I would know how to deal with in Access. to me that is the most frustrating thing in the world.
I know what you mean by starting small "Hello World" lol I have warn off the paint on my keyboard with all the letters that compose the words "hello world" lol Although I agree with that I also have a bit of theory behind me also. just enough to tease teh heck out of me with this new way of creating a program. Let me give you an example:
I have a really good base to build a website: register , login, profile ... all that is working great. I havent' put much css to it yet but the mechanics of it are working. if I was to continue where I am stuck right now in Access it would take me but two seconds to find a solution to what I am trying to do: passing a userid value to a foreign key field in another table. I would simply type in the default data field of the form data = [TempVars]![CurrentUserID] but in mysql and php it is not as easy. I spend hours and hours on end trying to find a solution to little problems that I would know how to deal with in Access. to me that is the most frustrating thing in the world.
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uday.strad
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Re: when would be a time to realize I am too stupid to learn
Some tips for your help
w3schools.com
This is wer i started my basics...
Well it depends on each and every persons ability to cope up with this subject.... I could guide u with some tips to learn it faster....
1. Work under an experienced guy
2. Study and implement(study proper materials)
3. Try new stuff and try to bond each of them
4. Google what is needed.
5. Go through forums and specially those topics you may think is important. I am talkin about answered ones.
6. Also try solving some issues.
w3schools.com
This is wer i started my basics...
Well it depends on each and every persons ability to cope up with this subject.... I could guide u with some tips to learn it faster....
1. Work under an experienced guy
2. Study and implement(study proper materials)
3. Try new stuff and try to bond each of them
4. Google what is needed.
5. Go through forums and specially those topics you may think is important. I am talkin about answered ones.
6. Also try solving some issues.
Re: when would be a time to realize I am too stupid to learn
I appreciate the feedback. I visit W3school often. I have a few sites that I visit on a regular basis because each site have their own way of interpreting solutions and I find it helpful to look at a variety when trying to understand a concept.
Re: when would be a time to realize I am too stupid to learn
A few words regarding MS Access: I was teaching dBase II when Microsoft released Access, around 1994--gosh, that's 20 years ago!--and was asked to design a course for it at the college. I taught Access courses for nearly a decade, while also designing Access databases for consulting clients. So I have a long history with the software. Here's an example of what I wrote in an Access and ASP forum 5 years ago: http://forums.aspfree.com/microsoft-acc ... 08217.html and here's a demo database, illustrating several techniques, that I wrote about 4 years ago in another Access forum: http://www.developerbarn.com/community/ ... abase.435/. After a rough start (the early versions were very buggy), Access quickly became the most widely used end-user database, due to several reasons, including its well designed design interface and the ability to use a simple programming language (VBA) to build an end-user interface for an application. That is, the software included a very flexible Forms generator and an excellent banded Reports generator. I was the coordinator of the S.F. Bay Area Access User Group for some 15 years or so. For the past few years, though, I have abandoned Access for several reasons:
- Access is not well suited for use with Linux and Apache Web Server and PHP, and my activities for several years have centered on web databases. Of course, if you host your website on a Microsoft IIS Web Server and use ASP, this doesn't apply, but I use Apache hosting services.
- Beginning a couple of years ago, Microsoft has de-emphasized Access in its corporate priorities. Our user group met monthly for nearly 20 years in the Microsoft offices in Mountain View, California, and I was in frequent contact with some of the managers. It became apparent (although it was never expressed this bluntly) that Microsoft sees its product future in its other database, MSSQL Server, and its cloud service, Windows Azure. These are the products Microsoft wants professional developers to use for clients. It doesn't see a profitable future in desktop databases. So they have gradually diminished the support that they had previously offered to user groups like ours, and to individual database developers through programs like MSDN (Microsoft Developers Network).
- I have become more interested in Open Source software.
Last edited by califdon on Mon Jan 06, 2014 4:32 pm, edited 4 times in total.
Reason: Added a reference to IIS server and another posting of mine.
Reason: Added a reference to IIS server and another posting of mine.
Re: when would be a time to realize I am too stupid to learn
That is the reason why I shifted to mysql also. There won't be much desktop application like there was in the old days. that why I am making a serious effort to learn this new way with php and mysql. Coming from a GUI interface though doesn't give me a whole lot of transferable experience. One thing I truly like though is I can see how much more flexible it is to use php and mysql to create applications. It's a bit frustrating too because it's like starting from scratch and I often feel like an idiot. you should have a look at another one of my post calledIt doesn't see a profitable future in desktop databases.
passing the userid to a foreign key in another table
I been stuck on this for a few days now. if I would use Access to do the same thing I would simply go into properties- data - default value =[TempVars]![currentUserId] and I would have been able to move on to other things lol. php? you have to write a whole routine of codes to get the same outcome.
- social_experiment
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Re: when would be a time to realize I am too stupid to learn
Have a look at XAMPP; it offers a GUI interface within phpMyAdmin that allows interaction with the database and doesn't require you to have a lot of SQL know-how (in terms of syntax). It could help ease the transition from Microsoft Access to PHP / SQL databasesjaad wrote:Coming from a GUI interface...
“Don’t worry if it doesn’t work right. If everything did, you’d be out of a job.” - Mosher’s Law of Software Engineering
Re: when would be a time to realize I am too stupid to learn
yes I know, I use phpMyAdmin to do the setting up. works ok with me. Although this is getting back into GUI which I am forcing myself not to do. I really made up my mind, I am going to learn php no matter how hard and frustrating it is. My friends can't believe how much time and effort I put into this. I have a full time job but I put everything else on standby until I have grasp the fundamental of php. once there I will get back into a normal routine. I am a very dedicated individual, I never quit. when things get harder I try even harder and spend more time at it. I'm like a pitbull when I want to learn something and learn it the right way. I have tried to never copy code from forums. I always try instead to ask questions that will make me find my own answers. All I need is a bit of guidance and be pointed in the right direction so it makes it a bit easier to find what I need. This system that I have going at the moment came from a tutorial. I could have copy and paste it but I decided to hand type everything instead because I assume that programing skills comes easier the more you do it. Right now I am THE expert at echoing "Hello World" hahahahaha
I started 3 months ago after deciding to purchase a copy of Dreamweaver CC. that was a mistake lol
got me frustrated to the end.... then I dropped dreamweaver and learned html and css by hard coding it. then I went back to Dreamweaver and learn the environment. now that I can move around in html, css and Dreamweaver I am at the beef of my quest. learn php mysql (which will become bread and butter for me since I really suck at graphical design of website.)
I started 3 months ago after deciding to purchase a copy of Dreamweaver CC. that was a mistake lol
got me frustrated to the end.... then I dropped dreamweaver and learned html and css by hard coding it. then I went back to Dreamweaver and learn the environment. now that I can move around in html, css and Dreamweaver I am at the beef of my quest. learn php mysql (which will become bread and butter for me since I really suck at graphical design of website.)
Re: when would be a time to realize I am too stupid to learn
Learning raw SQL is a great idea, but I wouldn't eschew graphical interfaces entirely; sometimes they're just faster for making small changes. I recommend taking a look at HeidiSQL (Windows), Sequel Pro (OS X), or emma (Linux). I use a combination of GUI and CLI depending on what I need to accomplish.
Re: when would be a time to realize I am too stupid to learn
Really you are troubling about it so you probably this is not the case , but lets be fare not all people can be real programmers.
There are many people that can’t really go along with programming. Some of them might have PhD’s in programming but they can’t really understand what we are doing. The main reason is how they preserve the world around them. The rational logic perception along with the ability to vision a strategy to achieve a goal. Let’s face it we are not good at anything. I am not good in many fields and business sectors. I have worked in other fields and I seemed good but I wasn’t really, I completed my tasks but I wasn’t “great” at those.
We all can do many things, and most of us can go programming as well, but to be really a programmer you should feel that unexplained attraction to it, that flame. I don’t underestimate other jobs, maybe a relevant unexplained attraction has someone that cooks for other people as well , or cleans a place to make it really neat.
There are many people that can’t really go along with programming. Some of them might have PhD’s in programming but they can’t really understand what we are doing. The main reason is how they preserve the world around them. The rational logic perception along with the ability to vision a strategy to achieve a goal. Let’s face it we are not good at anything. I am not good in many fields and business sectors. I have worked in other fields and I seemed good but I wasn’t really, I completed my tasks but I wasn’t “great” at those.
We all can do many things, and most of us can go programming as well, but to be really a programmer you should feel that unexplained attraction to it, that flame. I don’t underestimate other jobs, maybe a relevant unexplained attraction has someone that cooks for other people as well , or cleans a place to make it really neat.