More career advice for Elok

[Elok]

Actually, that's significantly better than most Java tutorials. Still not great, but I could decode that on the fly well enough that I think I could get it with an example.

[Lorizael]

A brief example would be: A couple weeks back I wrote a program to simulate gravity. When the program executes, a whole bunch of planets on the screen move around, influencing each other via their mass. Object-oriented programming makes this easy, because I have a "Planet" class that contains all the properties I need for a planet as well as all the functions I need that act on a planet.

So if I've got a hundred planets on the screen and I need to know the mass of each one, I use the getMass function on each planet. Even though I have a hundred different planets, they all belong to the same class, so the getMass function I've written works for each planet in exactly the same way.

[Elok]

I think it doesn't even occur to a lot of tech people that this is an issue. They're so used to talking to people who understand--or don't need to understand and so don't ask--that they speak to even rank beginners as if they already talk the talk. The Cisco textbook I mentioned, entitled Network Fundamentals (i.e., the very first book in the series, for somebody who knows nothing) frequently says, "for more information on this subject, consult RFC 2276," or what-have-you.

RFCs, Requests For Comments, are technical documents written by engineers, for engineers, to describe a new networking standard they've dreamed up. The bozos who wrote this book genuinely thought the people in my Networking 1 class, which ended with us hooking three routers together for a final exam, would profit from reading some dusty jargon-wad from 1988.

[Elok]

You should probably write a Java tutorial, Lori.

[Hauldren Collider]

Elok, if you have any intention of doing serious programming you should consider taking some actual CS courses. But feel free to PM me if you have any programming questions. Particularly Java; that's the programming language I mostly use at work.

[Elok]

Yeah, the thing is, courses cost a fair amount of money, and I've already dumped a ton of cash on the CCNA stuff. Ideally, I suppose I'd get a reasonably tech-related job that paid OK, so I could move into a region with a decent community college, take the courses on the cheap while I'm working, then write them off on my taxes as business related. Or something like that. I understand that some jobs will actually pay for your education, but I'm not holding my breath.

EDIT: Also, thanks!

[Hauldren Collider]

Regarding RFCs, even I find RFCs to be rather difficult at times. For each of the few times that I've needed to consult an RFC directly, I had to read through them several times before they made any sense to me. One project had me writing an HTTP 1.0 web server (Computer Networks class). I read the HTTP 1.0 RFC probably a dozen times or more. A lot of this stuff is just not easy. The thing is, if you want to know exactly the way something is specified, there just isn't a better source.

Thankfully, I've found that you don't have to go digging through RFCs very often. Also, they vary in their difficulty. As with all things, some are much better than others. IIRC the XMPP RFC was pretty straightforward, as RFCs go.

(BTW that the Computer Networks class was a very high-level CS course, and basically unrelated to the sort of stuff you're doing. I actually ended up dropping it to focus on the other courses I was taking since my course schedule that semester was pretty intense.)

Bottom line, if you're having trouble figuring out what an RFC means, don't worry too much. You are not alone.

[regexcellent]

I can't remember the last time I read anything from an RFC.

[Aeson]

If you want to teach yourself some useful things, I would start by learning PHP/MySQL. Since that combo is what runs most blogs and forums, they tend to have a lot of tutorials written for laypeople ... soccer moms who want to put their recipes up on a website so that it shows up properly in Google search kinda stuff. Plus the UI design can be HTML/CSS which is about as easy as it gets to learn. Stackoverflow will be your best friend. Just click it when you see when asking Google "how to ...".

Install XAMPP so you can run your own local HTML/PHP/MySQL server. Start with Wordpress and look into shortcodes, custom page/post types. Now, worst comes to worst, you can make a few bucks on oDesk or from ads on your own website. PHP is similar enough in syntax to other programming languages that it will make it a lot easier when you do start taking some courses on C# or whatever.

If you want to put something up on the web and learn at the same time, try DigitalOcean VPS. They have really good tutorials on how to set up a server, it'll cost $5/mo (prorated to how long you actually use it). You probably won't understand what you just did so well, but do it a few times and you just learned how to set up and configure a web server. You won't know anything about how to maintain it, but even if all you can do is copy/paste the commands in ... generally a LAMP stack is so stable you have plenty of time to learn how to maintain it. My first server has run for about 2 years now and I only had to reboot it one time. I was completely clueless about setting up a server when I did it (and didn't have DO's good tutorials at the time).

[pchang]

I recommend http://www.codecademy.com. It is free and starts at a very basic level.

[Elok]

Yes, it does! Starting PHP now, because why not.

Wait, no, let's try HTML. I last learned it at 13, when frames were a hot new feature.

[Hauldren Collider]

PHP is terrible, I'd advise against it. Learn a more structured, better designed language. PHP will cause you to develop habits that will be very unfortunate in other languages. I say this as someone who has programmed PHP extensively from high school onwards and had two jobs where my primary responsibility was PHP programming.

[onodera]

Get a help desk position. Tell them you're willing to learn on the job. Then show them what you've learned. I know a guy who's started as a helpdesk operator and has become the deputy head of business analysis.

[Elok]

I'm going to get as many arrows in my quiver as I can. I finished their first lesson on HTML/CSS. When I've cleaned those out, I'll try Java, maybe. PHP or Python after that. Job skills uber alles. Not that I expect to become an expert at any of these from web tutorials, but I'll know enough to fake it convincingly, and learn as I go. IIRC, HTML, CSS and Java are the "trinity" of web page development, no? I can start there.

That site actually cheered me up immensely; thanks PChang.

[ZEE]

Elok is a nerd.