Coding

[Parrot]

How tough is it to learn php, css and Java for a rookie? I am trying to understand php but it's chewing all my brain.

 

[pandaa]

Once you understand the fundamentals, it's not too hard. You really need to develop a "coding mindset" before it really starts to click though. That's why I like Codecademy and other sites, like laracasts, because they're designed to teach you these skills and the critical thinking needed in coding.

 

[Parrot]

I am using w3schools and its pretty easy to learn from it. I will check out codeacademy as well. In the beginning php looks simple but with more lessons it gets tougher and tougher.

 

[Carson]

PHP and Python are good starter languages, in my opinion. They're languages that allow you to use object-oriented programming, but they don't force you to use it at first.

 

[int0x10]

Personally, I wouldn't recommend PHP for a beginner, partly due to the fact that it freely lets you mix paradigms, works completely differently to other languages and has lots of weird quirks. Python or even Ruby on Rails might be better initially.

As for Java, that's not too much of a learning curve once you've got Python or something like that, and it's pretty similar to C# (which a lot of the developers at my forum work with), so you'd be able to transfer to that too.