Ask HN: I learned PHP, MySql, Jquery. Now what? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: I learned PHP, MySql, Jquery. Now what?

6 pointsYoungEnt18 comments

I am really really proficient in the above listed languages because I love web development, and I just hack with those all day. But I feel like I'm missing something...I feel like there's more to learn and more to do...Can you please enlighten me, and many other people in my position, and tell us what to do next?

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If you aren't already doing so I would suggest you to start developing web applications. Pick an idea that you find interesting and useful(not necessarily profitable, but it doesn't hurt to be so). Develop and launch it. Show it to HN. In the process you will learn many things like

1. Feasibility analysis of idea

2. Project planning

3. UI/UX Design

4. Front-end development using HTML5/CSS3/javascript/jQuery

5. Server side programming using vanilla php and mysql, its freedom and headaches(then you'll understand the importance of frameworks).

6. Testing - unit testing,stress testing,browser testing,resolution testing etc.

7. Analytics and its importance.

8. Performance optimization techniques.

9. launching and marketing your application.

10. and the fact that programming is fun in itself but it is even more fun to use it to actually make something.

Best of luck.

That depends on what you want to do with your life. If you want to build and sell startups, start building and selling them. You don't have to be a great developer to do that.

If you want to become the best developer you can be, then here's my advice:

Learn about the process of building software. Diligently practice various development systems (agile, scrum, kanban, etc.). Build a reliable, disciplined behaviour into your personal development process, so no matter what the task, you know exactly how to best take an idea through to completion efficiently and with as few headaches as possible.

After that: learn about architecture, algorithms, and hardware.

If you didn't get on CakePHP, I'd definitely recommend CodeIgniter. It's got a much gentler learning curve than Cake, Zend, etc, and is a great introduction to MVC and frameworks. Also CodeIgniter has the best documentation of all the PHP frameworks I've tried.

Once you're comfortable in CodeIgniter you'll find other frameworks make a lot more sense, and you can choose which one suits you best.

I ended up sticking with CodeIgniter, but my own customised version with things like the awesome DataMapper ORM.

I'd really get in deep on the PHP platform, with an emphasis on performance. For example, if you have not looked at them already, take a look at the APC cache for opt code and user data, then distributed caching via Memcache (and the PHP clients for this), and I would also spend some time looking at PHP-FPM. Also HipHop if you're doing something really large scale. There is a lot more to modern PHP development than people realise.

Work! go to freelanacer: http://www.freelancer.com/affiliates/ahmed613/ and start searching for jobs under the php category. you will find many interesting jobs there, so sign up there and start seeing interesting projects that you can earn money with.

All what you can imagine is there.. so start! thats the proper step for you. Good luck.

I think the next step for you to move on from web development is to jump to the native application development world.

This can either be mobile development or desktop development. There are many possible languages to use for this. Java is one of the most popular starting languages these days, but I would still suggest learning C or C++.

Why move on from web development?

And I know both c++ and java. But all my ideas are all web apps, I can't think of anything for desktop development.

Anything you are developing for the web can be developed for the desktop.

I don't see why this is an obvious "next step". These are different platforms, why is one necessarily preferred to the other?

Where i said that it's the obvious "next step". I only said (I think) it is.

I'd say learn JavaScript not just jQuery.

Languages are really tools — so what do you want to build?

Well all my ideas are web apps...

Q. Are the tools that you know good enough to at least prototype your ideas?

I mean yes you can learn languages that are heavy duty like java — but so many things are done in PHP if you already know that...

Do you have a site of any sample work?

Learn a good JS framework, like Backbone

Speaking of frameworks, how much of your current work to date in web development involves a framework?

none. I tried learning cake once, but just thought it would be easier to just do straight up PHP. I know I'm wrong but, I guess I was just trying to get immediate gratification

You're not wrong, they're just trying to make you believe that.

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