Honestly who came here without
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Honestly who came here without
No knowledge or little knowledge of PHP/MySQL prior to joining this forum and are now comfortable in coding?
- John Cartwright
- Site Admin
- Posts: 11470
- Joined: Tue Dec 23, 2003 2:10 am
- Location: Toronto
- Contact:
I was a Graphic Designer with an associate of arts. I had a one semester course in web design. Everything else was print and publishing. In three years time my job title has changed from "Graphic Designer" to "Programmer/analyst". What did I do? I bought a couple Sams books and posted my questions here. The people on this forum are the only people I know who code in PHP. My friends at Devnet taught me PHP.
- shiznatix
- DevNet Master
- Posts: 2745
- Joined: Tue Dec 28, 2004 5:57 pm
- Location: Tallinn, Estonia
- Contact:
I came here and knew some things, thought I knew a lot more though. I have learned almost every aspect of programming from these forums, and I have 2 interviews tomorrow for programming PHP with MySQL and I had a interview yesterday too. If it was not for these forums I would never have learned as much as I have to get to where I am at today.
- n00b Saibot
- DevNet Resident
- Posts: 1452
- Joined: Fri Dec 24, 2004 2:59 am
- Location: Lucknow, UP, India
- Contact:
- Skittlewidth
- Forum Contributor
- Posts: 389
- Joined: Wed Nov 06, 2002 9:18 am
- Location: Kent, UK
Yep I knew absolutely nothing when I first came here. I think Twigletmac was the first person to help me out - good to see the Mac is back!
I now code PHP for a living, though there's always loads more to learn.
I once had a colleague who needed to learn PHP fast so I told him to come here for help if I was busy (which I was at the time), but he kept making excuses and wouldn't ...anyway long story short my boss fired him after he failed to get the hang of it after 6 months.
Moral of the story? Don't be afraid to ask questions - PHPDN is your friend!
I now code PHP for a living, though there's always loads more to learn.
I once had a colleague who needed to learn PHP fast so I told him to come here for help if I was busy (which I was at the time), but he kept making excuses and wouldn't ...anyway long story short my boss fired him after he failed to get the hang of it after 6 months.
Moral of the story? Don't be afraid to ask questions - PHPDN is your friend!
- Chris Corbyn
- Breakbeat Nuttzer
- Posts: 13098
- Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2004 7:57 am
- Location: Melbourne, Australia
I started here with absolutely no php knowledge, and have learned a lot thanks to this forum. One of those things is how to search for the solution first, before posting a basic problem that has been asked a hundred times. But yeah, onion, burrito, feyd, tim... a lot of you guys have helped me out of a few tough spots with "the man." thanks by the way, I owe you a few beers.
- evilmonkey
- Forum Regular
- Posts: 823
- Joined: Sun Oct 06, 2002 1:24 pm
- Location: Toronto, Canada
Started as a 15 year old n00b who knew nothing about PHP, though had some programming expirience in C/C++. Since then, I forgot 90% of C/C++ (there may be an outside that I still know how to forumulate a printf() or a cout>>), but I'm not 100% comfortable with even some of the moer advanced functions of PHP (and I think I turned 18 somewhere in that time). Devnetwork and my tireless efforts are to thank. 
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alex.barylski
- DevNet Evangelist
- Posts: 6267
- Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:00 pm
- Location: Winnipeg
Started programming around age 8 on a Commodore Vic-20 with it's version of BASIC and "hello world" type programs 
Didn't seriously get into development until age 11 or 13ish...when I borrowed a buddies dads version of VB3...took it home and started programming in VB...and wanted to develop a flight simulator....
After about 2 years in VB I figured out that a flight sim would most likely need to be programmed in C/C++...
So I started programming in C/C++ which eventually lead me into assembler, which takes you on a wild journey...that lands you know where in the "real world"...
Although my understanding of computers at the lowest level to the highest level is nice to have...it certainly does very little in making a living as a developer...
You simply can't program in Assembler and make anything worthwhile...
It's handy though if your trying to hack the linux kernel...but honestly...I've never found a reason to do so
Ao again I started up in C++ and reached IMHO expert level...I understand almost every advanced topic you can throw at me...
After reaching an indepth understanding of C++ I switched into cool gear and started learning MFC/OWL....finally settling on MFC because of it's online communities and code base...
MFC was hard to grasp, so I took one step back again...and started reading up on Windows SDK...until I understood advanced topics in Windows...like Semaphores, Hooks, etc...
I started to really get into custom control development...when my interest was peaked by the introduction of COM...then ATL/COM+/DCOM/ActiveX and so on...at which point my interest was lost...
I played around in C++/MFC until 2001ish...at which point I took a programming course in Gr. 12 and learned Javascript...
From that point on I started playing in HTML, then design or atleast tried...which led me into server side programming...at first I used ASP...but I disliked the BASIC syntax...seeing how I had just spent years learning C++ and getting used to semi-colons, etc....so I switched to Perl (ASP not being open source and hosting costing twice as much was a turn off too)...which I did for about 3 months...but confused by the whole switch from desktop application development paradigm to client/server via HTTP...I eventually opted for a easier entrance into web development and choose PHP...seeing how there was no libraries needed for sending headers, etc...PHP was a good choice...simple to get started and UNDERSTAND everything that was going on immediately...
PHP has been in my blood ever since...about 4 years...giver or take a year...
Regex is the newest concept for me...still don't have it totally figured out...and surely I don't write optimized regex, but it's simple enough to get answers from skilled regex's and paste the code...so I think i'll leave my regex skillset where it is
It was actually reading up on EBNF that kinda made regex "click" prior to that I really didn't understand it at all
Anyways yea...
What was the point of this thread???
I've lost myself in talking about myself...
Isn't everybody's personal history their own self-proclaimed most interesting story?
I'ma geek...so i'm leaving now *ninja vanish*
Cheers
Didn't seriously get into development until age 11 or 13ish...when I borrowed a buddies dads version of VB3...took it home and started programming in VB...and wanted to develop a flight simulator....
After about 2 years in VB I figured out that a flight sim would most likely need to be programmed in C/C++...
So I started programming in C/C++ which eventually lead me into assembler, which takes you on a wild journey...that lands you know where in the "real world"...
Although my understanding of computers at the lowest level to the highest level is nice to have...it certainly does very little in making a living as a developer...
You simply can't program in Assembler and make anything worthwhile...
It's handy though if your trying to hack the linux kernel...but honestly...I've never found a reason to do so
Ao again I started up in C++ and reached IMHO expert level...I understand almost every advanced topic you can throw at me...
After reaching an indepth understanding of C++ I switched into cool gear and started learning MFC/OWL....finally settling on MFC because of it's online communities and code base...
MFC was hard to grasp, so I took one step back again...and started reading up on Windows SDK...until I understood advanced topics in Windows...like Semaphores, Hooks, etc...
I started to really get into custom control development...when my interest was peaked by the introduction of COM...then ATL/COM+/DCOM/ActiveX and so on...at which point my interest was lost...
I played around in C++/MFC until 2001ish...at which point I took a programming course in Gr. 12 and learned Javascript...
From that point on I started playing in HTML, then design or atleast tried...which led me into server side programming...at first I used ASP...but I disliked the BASIC syntax...seeing how I had just spent years learning C++ and getting used to semi-colons, etc....so I switched to Perl (ASP not being open source and hosting costing twice as much was a turn off too)...which I did for about 3 months...but confused by the whole switch from desktop application development paradigm to client/server via HTTP...I eventually opted for a easier entrance into web development and choose PHP...seeing how there was no libraries needed for sending headers, etc...PHP was a good choice...simple to get started and UNDERSTAND everything that was going on immediately...
PHP has been in my blood ever since...about 4 years...giver or take a year...
Regex is the newest concept for me...still don't have it totally figured out...and surely I don't write optimized regex, but it's simple enough to get answers from skilled regex's and paste the code...so I think i'll leave my regex skillset where it is
It was actually reading up on EBNF that kinda made regex "click" prior to that I really didn't understand it at all
Anyways yea...
What was the point of this thread???
I've lost myself in talking about myself...
Isn't everybody's personal history their own self-proclaimed most interesting story?
I'ma geek...so i'm leaving now *ninja vanish*
Cheers