It Courses Or It Counsellors?

[Girino]

I have realized I am being left behind with all those technology advancements and I start feeling like my parents when the VHS arrived at our home. Not nice.

I would like to be back on track, but I lack of IT culture. Apart from a Java programming exam at the university (which I totally forgot, full disclosure) and some HTML, I am stuck there. I am particularly interested in websites & analytics, and mobile apps. I read on La Nación that there is a (new?) university in Belgrano offering IT courses and I am wondering if by enrolling there I would learn from the basic, of I'd need some knowledge before approaching the courses.

Alternatively, if anybody is available for some explanation for dummies like me, I'd happily buy him/her a beer/lunch for his/her time.

 

[syngirl]

Welcome to the age of dinosaurs. I'm there with you. I always say I will do course on Coursera etc and then end up with too much work. The worst is after 6 months of doing print design I had to go in and do some work on a client's wordpress site, including a newsletter that I had to code and style. I had forgotten some CSS. Seriously.

Are you an independent learner or do you want to be in course that requires attendance etc? If you are an independent learner there are a tonne of resources online.

If you are independent and want something you can do from home, have a look on Coursera, edX, CodeAcademy, Tuts+ (this one might be more design oriented than you like, I haven't looked at it in ages, it used to be mostly Adobe software tutorials, they may have expanded), MIT and a lot of other universities now have open learning platforms with a lot of free content.

Treehouse I've considered before but it adds up ($$$). Same with Lynda.com (if they still exist, it's been years since I looked.) Lynda was more design oriented, but may have added more content.


Here are some local clubs / places for learning:

http://www.buenosaires.gob.ar/educacion/programatufuturo -- this is a club, maybe you should go to a session and you can talk to some people there and find out which are the better courses in the city etc.

more info on them: http://www.buenosaires.gob.ar/noticias/programa-tu-futuro-2015


http://www.itmaster.com.ar/

 

[London2Baires]

I have realized I am being left behind with all those technology advancements and I start feeling like my parents when the VHS arrived at our home. Not nice.

I would like to be back on track, but I lack of IT culture. Apart from a Java programming exam at the university (which I totally forgot, full disclosure) and some HTML, I am stuck there. I am particularly interested in websites & analytics, and mobile apps. I read on La Nación that there is a (new?) university in Belgrano offering IT courses and I am wondering if by enrolling there I would learn from the basic, of I'd need some knowledge before approaching the courses.

Alternatively, if anybody is available for some explanation for dummies like me, I'd happily buy him/her a beer/lunch for his/her time.

There are a lot of places online where you can learn the basics, and even some more advanced stuff.

I've heard that http://www.freecodecamp.com/ are pretty good.

Enjoy!

 

[thorsten]

There are tons of free online resources out there (coursea, edx, udacity), a lot of which have a very high quality. Also, if you are interested in a specific web framework for example (Angular, Node, , many of them have now very good starter tutorials compared to a few years ago where open-source project just delivered the code and you had to figure out how it works mostly by yourself.

 

[Girino]

...if you are interested in a specific web framework for example (Angular, Node,...

Man, what are you talking about?! I am at a loss here.

I tried codeacademy once, but I really need to gain a whole picture before going in depth into the various thing. For example, okay for coding, but what about the compiler? Are they still used? And then where are they? Apart from my computer... how do that code actually get online and works?

I am not good as an independent learner, I am more of a procrastinator and it is so easier to get busy with the things you already master, that before actually sitting there and doing some thinking and studying I'd rather do house cleaning full time.

I need something explained for kids, basically (not for nerd kids). Of course I can register to Wordpress, take a theme and fiddle with it (been there, done that). But then I know there is Wordpress for actual developers, I read about it but I got lost by the 2nd paragraph, too many technical terms. It is like someone speaking Portuguese - I am lucky if I can recognize a word I remember I have heard in Spanish and I am not sure about.

I think I need an actual school or teacher who I can ask dumb questions to.

 

[GMXam]

I have realized I am being left behind with all those technology advancements and I start feeling like my parents when the VHS arrived at our home. Not nice.

I would like to be back on track, but I lack of IT culture. Apart from a Java programming exam at the university (which I totally forgot, full disclosure) and some HTML, I am stuck there. I am particularly interested in websites & analytics, and mobile apps. I read on La Nación that there is a (new?) university in Belgrano offering IT courses and I am wondering if by enrolling there I would learn from the basic, of I'd need some knowledge before approaching the courses.

Alternatively, if anybody is available for some explanation for dummies like me, I'd happily buy him/her a beer/lunch for his/her time.

I say figure out what kind of project you want to work on first. Do you have a web idea in mind? Maybe you have a tool you wish was available for use? Or perhaps you want to know how a specific website works? I would start there first, since that would be an interest driven goal, much easier to keep than an extremely broad and boring one (ie getting to know IT). Once you have that figured out, take an intro to programming course on Coursera or take MIT's online free course on database structure (I don't have the link, but you're resourceful on google, I've seen you post some links), or maybe take both to see what level of programming you want to focus your learning.

I've always been in favor of the free learning options over paying a university to learn, unless you really want that degree. But that's me. I second all the free courses listed above. If you are a book learner, take one of the unscheduled and accessible anytime courses. If you need to hear someone speak it to you, go for the scheduled courses. Lots of people have already recorded themselves giving an overview of programming or general architecture.

If you feel you really need to ask questions, maybe you should enroll in a computer science track with a university, but you will pay dearly out of pocket for that one (time and money-if a private school).

 

[thorsten]

Man, what are you talking about?! I am at a loss here.

I tried codeacademy once, but I really need to gain a whole picture before going in depth into the various thing. For example, okay for coding, but what about the compiler? Are they still used? And then where are they? Apart from my computer... how do that code actually get online and works?

I am not good as an independent learner, I am more of a procrastinator and it is so easier to get busy with the things you already master, that before actually sitting there and doing some thinking and studying I'd rather do house cleaning full time.

I need something explained for kids, basically (not for nerd kids). Of course I can register to Wordpress, take a theme and fiddle with it (been there, done that). But then I know there is Wordpress for actual developers, I read about it but I got lost by the 2nd paragraph, too many technical terms. It is like someone speaking Portuguese - I am lucky if I can recognize a word I remember I have heard in Spanish and I am not sure about.

I think I need an actual school or teacher who I can ask dumb questions to.

The problem is that you seem to be interested in a large number of fields. For a professional web application, you want to have an understanding how the web works in general (the protocols), how to design stuff (HTML, CSS), how to code the actual logic (which is a huge field in general and then you have typically client-side code e.g., in Javascript and server-side code often in another programming language), how to process data, etc.
You learn all that stuff (at least the basic concepts and a few implementations) in a CS course but that takes a few years for a reason. I'd start with picking one topic and focus on this, otherwise you'll get overwhelmed pretty quickly.
I don't think a quick-course with all the topics above exists (or can exist), as it's a lot of material. For instance, yes, compilers are still widely used, but no, you don't need them always - in interpreted languages there's no need for a compiler but sometimes you still have one for performance reasons. In compiled languages you compile your code, but sometimes you only compile intermediate code while a virtual machine interprets it (or compiles it further to machine code). While it makes perfectly sense once one understands how programming languages and the hardware itself work, it's not easy to absorb for a novice in the field as there are no simple answers like yes or no. Same with code in a web-application: some of it runs on the client-side (typically Javascript executed by your browser), while other parts run on the server (e.g. business logic which accesses the database). So I'd either take a lot of time and learn the basics just like in a CS course, or focus on one specifc part (e.g. how can I design web pages using CSS).

 

[Girino]

The problem is that you seem to be interested in a large number of fields.

Yes, I am more interested in "this is how the world of IT works" rather than "become a programmer by yourself in 4 weeks". Do you remember the wonderful book "How things are made?". I need one for the Digital Era, mine is still talking about music-cassettes and compact-disc.

 

[RodalfoWalsh]

Do you know how a transistor works? That's probably in your book. Start there

 

[Girino]

Do you know how a transistor works? That's probably in your book. Start there

Your posts are so useless, I am wondering why you are still posting, at all.

I am looking at a holistic approach, not about details. I wrote it clearly: I don't want to gain the level of in-depth knowledge to know how to program, just how the 2.0 world works.

Stuff like: do people with a successful page on FB earn money from that? What about people with popular YouTube Channels? Do YouTube pay them or is the advertising, only? Or is it just royalties? What about when the videos are re-posted elsewhere?
And what about establishing an online presence? Is it really necessary to have a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a LinkedIn profile, an amazing website, etc?
What's the fastest and cheapest way to get a decent online presence? Like a website and email addresses with your own domain. Wordpress asks for $300/year. Do people really pay that every time they spark an idea and decide to give it a go? What about people following multiple projects? Are they really investing $2,000 just to see how it would go?

Do online business work like offline companies? I.e. you start little and if you are successful enough somebody bigger will pay good money to buy you and you can move to the next project? What would be better? Getting together a group with a web designer, a programmer, a communication specialist ad investors or outsourcing these tasks to freelancers?


Why there are so many websites offering things for free? Like codeacademy or How-to or Tom's Hardware. How do they maintain those websites? Are they still paying for the host and the programmers, the designers "just for fun"? When do a "hobby" turns into a business? Does it really happen by chance? When successful people are interviewed it looks so natural... they say "I was a mommy and I had this idea, so I decided to make a website/blog/portal/e-market and it was a success, I didn't expect that". Should I expect a mommy that does this by herself with Wordpress $300 package or a wealthy mommy with a IT husband doing this for a life and for free for her?

Why is Gmail free but the coolest add-ons are by subscription? I am thinking about getting your own domain email address with Gmail, using a mail tracker, etc. If I were to set up a business with a customized email domain, could I still access it with gmail through web or should I do it separately?

Is Dreamweaver still in use? What's the difference between Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org? Is the latter done offline and then loaded on a remote server through FTP like in the old times?


And so on.